


just flesh and blood exist

by hupsoonheng



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Carrying, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Veterans, and also into falconry, bucky makes zines, sam is a baker, why's that a tag?? i'm glad it is though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-16 22:30:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7287274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hupsoonheng/pseuds/hupsoonheng
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>honestly i don't know how to summarize this neatly. this is a fic about bucky, and this is a fic about sam, and this is a fic about how neither of them believe they're "ready" to be loved, and how wrong they both are. this is about making zines, and baking tarts, and training falcons. this is not about finding yourself in other people, but in finding understanding in them, and healing. and maybe making out, too.<br/> </p><p>  <i>He says his name is Sam, and you're instantly embarrassed. </i></p><p>  <i>Not because of him, exactly, although the way he holds out his hand to shake when the only one you have is occupied holding up the rest of you on a cane, that's pretty awkward in itself. It's more that he's beautiful, clean, smiling—a human that got put together right and keeps himself that way. And you're anything but. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. bucky

**Author's Note:**

> this is loosely based on a prompt sent to me by [bioloyg](http://bioloyg.tumblr.com/), asking for baker sam, and a bucky too shy to talk to him. i think they wanted something cuter than what i turned out, and i meant for this to be a oneshot afternoon of writing and not the, uh, multimedia project it became, but here we are. it's been interesting to write about sam from someone else's point of view, i have to say; he's a lot more secretive from an outside perspective, it feels like. 
> 
> this also got very personal for me as someone who deals with chronic pain, and as with all things personal, i am left feeling... unsure of this fic? but i hope you enjoy it

He says his name is Sam, and you're instantly embarrassed. 

Not because of him, exactly, although the way he holds out his hand to shake when the only one you have is occupied holding up the rest of you on a cane, that's pretty awkward in itself. It's more that he's beautiful, clean, smiling—a human that got put together right and keeps himself that way. And you're anything but. 

"Oh, uh, sorry man, I didn't mean—" Sam starts, already retracting his hand, but you shake your head and lope your way to the counter at the front of the shop. 

"Don't worry about it," you say, leaning your cane against the counter so you can hold out your own hand in turn. You hope he thinks you're naturally ruddy or something, instead of humiliated by your own existence. He takes your hand, and you give it as hearty a shake as you know how. Try to live up to the normality Sam is putting on you by treating you like a symmetrical person. "I'm—" 

"Bucky! I didn't think you were ever really coming out to my new job," Steve says as he bounds out of the back. He's got on a white apron that helps cover up how much flour must be on it, but you can see a smear of batter on his cheek. "I've been working here two weeks already, you know." 

"Bucky?" Sam asks, and you instantly detect the signs of a laugh being held in. You whip your hand away, take your cane back to lurch back a few steps. 

"James," you mutter to the juncture of the floor and baseboard. Steve is so smart, really he is, but not always when it matters. 

"Well, _James,_ it's good to meet you," Sam says, grinning as he leans onto his elbows on the counter. 

"I see you've met my boss." Steve pats his apron as he states the obvious. Sam points out the batter on his face and Steve licks his thumb like a granny to wipe it away. "What do you think of the place, Buck?" 

"What do I think?" You look around at the store, small and spare with white walls. No seating, plenty of sunshine. You're a regular real estate agent. "I don't know, it's a pastry joint. What am I supposed to think?" 

Steve sighs, shaking his head. "I'm gonna get my stuff, I guess. Sam, am I good? Can you check?" 

Sam puts his head behind the curtain for ten seconds or so, then pops back out. "Yeah, you're good. And Nat's coming in real soon. You can bounce." Sam thumbs over his shoulder. Steve gives him a big smile and disappears behind the white curtain hung between the shop and the kitchen. 

That leaves you waiting with Sam, of course. You cast around again like a chair's just going to magically pop up if you look hard enough; your knee burns with the pain of standing too long, even taking weight off it with the cane. You hate the look of those canes with the built in stools, associating them with old people so ancient they're beyond being called elderly, but in times like these you wish you'd put your pride in the garbage where it belongs. You also wish you'd conditioned your hair today, dry enough to tickle when it brushes your jaw. Or maybe worn something that didn't look like you were the fifth owner. There's a lot to criticize. 

"So I hear you two are from New York?" Sam asks. What a polite guy. Not just high cheekbones and ripped arms, this one. 

"Yeah," you say, at least stopping yourself from shrugging. You think about what your old self might have said. Probably some quip about New York pride or just being in DC for... Ugh. You can't even come up with a hypothetical joke. You don't think about what makes the difference between old Bucky and whatever the fuck you are now. No, that's for therapy with Doctor Park. 

"What part?" He looks genuinely interested. 

"Brooklyn. Bay Ridge," you clarify, adjusting your grip on your cane. 

Sam whistles. "All the way at the end of the line, huh?" 

"You been to New York before?" you ask, because it sounds like he knows his shit. 

With a laugh, Sam says, "Been to New York? Boy! I'm from Harlem!" 

"No shit?" His laugh makes your heart thump in a way that hurts. More importantly, there's something so comfortable about this kind of banter. New Yorkers finding each other in the wild. Something you can talk about without just shrugging and falling into silence again. "How'd you end up down here in DC?" 

"Alright, let's go." Steve interrupts yet again, emerging apron-free and ready to go home. He thrusts a beat up tiny paperback into the back pocket of his jeans, and pushes past the swinging door next to the counter. "Later, Sam." 

"Arrivederci," Sam replies with a two-finger salute. "Don't get into too much trouble." 

"Try and stop me," Steve retorts with a grin. Then he holds the door open for you, and you hobble on out. Of course, as soon as the door jangles shut behind Steve, you realize you didn't even say goodbye. 

Your face is red-hot, which is something you only truly realize once the wind hits it. Shit. Shit, shit, _shit_. You try to change your pace, get Steve walking behind or in front of you, but he's been your friend too long to not instantly adjust to your new speed. 

"You feelin' something funny?" Steve says with a chuckle, leaning down to look up at your face. 

"Nuh-uh. I forgot how to feel stuff," you say, looking resolutely at the gutter. 

"Sam's cute, huh?" 

"Sam who?" Despite what it does to your ankle—on the opposite leg, the one you use a whole lot more, because life is unfair—you speed up as much as you can, bursting ahead of Steve. You've seen attractive dudes before without doing this shit. Not to say that you've never done this shit before, because Steve will remind you that it's practically your MO if you ever forget. _This shit,_ specifically, being the art of falling for beautiful men with winning smiles who pay you even a drop of attention. Good, kind attention. You know, the shit you don't deserve these days. 

"It's okay, you know," Steve says, catching up easy. It used to be the other way around; Steve was always so underweight, so riddled with asthma and scoliosis and all his other problems, that he could never keep up unless you actively tried to keep to his pace. Now he's got a good controller medication, paid by the insurance he gets as a high school art teacher—which keeps paying even in these summer months—and he's been working out, getting some lean muscles on those bones and strengthening the support around his curvy spine. He's an idealized twink, really. 

"What's okay?" The entrance to the metro is a few blocks off still, which means Steve won't drop this until he has to fumble for his pass. 

"Sam's a nice guy. If you like him, next time I won't interrupt your conversation, you know?" 

There's a lot of different ways to respond to that, all of which would probably make Steve uncomfortable or sad, so you opt for silence, which Doctor Park told you to knock off. Steve sighs again, which is right about when fatigue drops your pace to your usual single mile an hour. 

As Steve heads down a few steps ahead of you on the long, long stairs to train level, holding your cane, you finally speak up. "Look, Steve, I appreciate what you're tryna do for me. It's what best friends do. But like, just because Sam's great to look at and we got like, one thing in common, that doesn't mean anything. Especially not on his end." 

"What do you mean?" Steve says it blankly, like you haven't had this conversation every other time you saw some dude that made you blush to your roots. 

"Let's say he's not a douchebag about my whole no-arm thing, or the depression or PTSD thing. Or the cane thing, or everything tied to the cane. All that shit." Your foot almost slips on the edge of a step, and Steve is already diving toward you with both arms, even as you catch yourself. 

"You got it?" He pulls back most of the way, still watching you with concern. 

"Yeah, I'm good. I'm fine." You renew your hold on the bannister, and start your descent again. You wonder why they even bother putting in elevators if they're gonna be out of service half the time. "Anyway, the point is, let's say he's cool about all that shit, like on a human level. Does that mean he wants to date all that shit? I'm pretty sure almost nobody does." 

"Maybe he'd wanna date the person attached to all that shit," Steve says with a frown. "None of that defines you, Bucky." 

"Not to you, of course not," you sigh. "I just don't feel like taking the risk, alright? My life's already full of shit. I don't need to pile some more on." 

"Whatever you say." Steve obviously doesn't agree, between his tone and the jutting set of his jaw, but he changes the subject like a good friend does. He talks instead about an email one of his students from the recent semester sent him, with photos of a huge painting she's working on. He's real proud, especially given it was only his second year teaching. 

At home you and Steve collaborate on cooking as much as your single hand allows. You can't chop or slice anything, but you can stir a pot, or mix ingredients for a marinade. Steve got these big cushy foam mats to put in a couple key spots on the kitchen floor, bless him, and while it's not a perfect pain free experience, it's way better than just standing on the hard linoleum. He sets you to whisk eggs (gently, he reminds you) for the fried fish he wants to make; when he turns around you've gotten egg on the wall, and he asks you why you're like this. You say you always held the bowl sideways when you whisked eggs as a two-handed man, and Steve says he can't imagine why anyone would need to hold the bowl sideways. You just clean the egg off the semi-gloss. 

After dinner you drop your collection of pill bottles on your bed to sort them into an organizer for next week, and listen to your voicemail. You're never away from your phone, of course, but you also never answer it. Doctor Park says you should try, probably because half your missed calls are from her. Like this message, reminding you that you missed your appointment today, and asking you to call back for a reschedule. 

If only you weren't such a fucking mess. You put your phone on your chest, lay your hand under it, and exhale through your nose as you close your eyes. Once upon a time you were a real live handsome devil, with all ten fingers and toes and a way with women, and men, and anyone else who looked your way. You signed up to get the degree your parents couldn't pay for, and an IED blasted away your left arm and your last two toes on your left foot. It shattered your left kneecap, fractured your pelvis, broke most of the bones in your right ankle, and it riddled your torso with shrapnel that you're still convinced wasn't completely removed by the way you ache. You came home with your brain pouring out of your ears and nightmares that twisted up your muscles so bad at night you woke up feeling worse than ever. 

If only you weren't such a mess. If only you had more than a third of your old personality left. If only you were lovable to anyone besides Steve, who you sometimes suspect of being too stubborn to admit you're a pain in his ass. It'd be nice to put yourself out there, hope Sam didn't mind walking slower for ol' Hop-a-long Barnes. It'd get Steve off your ass about meeting other people instead of only ever alternating between holing up in your room and lurking around Langdon Park. Hell, maybe even someone other than Steve's new boss, because that's actually probably kind of awkward. 

You laugh to yourself. As if that matters, when there's no chance of even giving it a shot. You drop the fantasizing to get dressed for bed, and then sit out in the living room for another two hours watching Cutthroat Kitchen with Steve while snacking on Pop Tarts. Well, you snack on Pop Tarts, anyway, which is why none of your old clothes fit real well anymore in the waist. You wear a lot of sweatpants these days. 

In the morning Steve is gone by the time you wake up, because pastry kitchens start their shifts ridiculously early to get their products churned out in time. You do your in-bed stretches that will let you even begin to put weight on your feet, and then you do the stretches that help loosen up all the muscles that froze over in your sleep. You might take liberties with your mental health, but you can't survive the day without this part of your routine. You reach for your newly filled pill organizer, pop open the first cell for Sunday. Different painkillers for different days, because your body adjusts quickly when it finds a chemical it likes.

You take a shower that's limited by how long you can stand on the unhelpfully thin bath mat, remember to put conditioner in your hair this time. Remember as soon as you bend under the spray to rinse that you can never get it all out before your knee starts screaming, not with just the one hand. Getting dressed is at least easy by your current life's standards, just yanking on fabric here and there until you've got on underwear, sweats, a faded T-shirt that claims you went to Georgetown University. Untrue, but the thrift store racks don't discriminate. 

The easiest breakfast is a bowl of cereal, and while you eat you set your phone to speaker to play Doctor Park's message on loop. She reminds you that for therapy to work, you do actually have to show up. She says she thinks you've made progress. On the third beginning of the message, you pull paper from the center of the table, as well as a rock. Your drawing rock, you'll say, that you found in the park. You put it up at the top of the paper, keep it from shuffling around too much. You're no artist like Steve, with neither his training or hand eye coordination, but Doctor Park said you needed to express yourself, and Steve agreed when you told him later like he'd laugh at that with you. So you draw yourself a little comic.

Your approximation of Doctor Park is barely recognizable, because she's just a stick figure in what might be a lab coat, but you think putting a rectangle for a clipboard in her clumsy stick arms might clear things up. You trace the third panel, poorly, over a selfie you take in the moment, and it makes everything about you even uglier, from your stubble to the ragged edge on your bottom lip you make sure to outline.

But at least the last panel makes you laugh. You make sure, as you draw yourself being ejected through the roof of a hospital—you know, because it's got a big plus sign on it—that your cane goes with you, flying up in a higher arc than yours. 

That's one for the zine, you're pretty sure. You take it back to your room, haul up the heavy cover of the hulking scanner Steve let you perma-borrow, and then hold it open with your stump while you position the paper on the flatbed. You lay it out on a new page in your illegal copy of InDesign, with room underneath for something else. What else, you're not sure yet, but this issue is looking pretty good so far. You know, for a zine you print five copies of per issue and then let only Steve look at, provided he doesn't talk to you about the weirder shit. 

You look back at your other pages, congratulating yourself silently. There's a coloring page that's just one single shape—a disembodied arm, cut off right at the armpit, its fingers spread cartoonishly wide. There's an unfinished word scramble, with answers like _human suffering_ , _oxycontin_ , and _shoehorn_. Your favorite page so far is a collage of photos of all the old dogs you've seen in DC in the past three months, with your own groggy face hiding under a trio of big fluffy dogs. (Steve took a picture of you with your own phone while you were still talking, and you never deleted it because looking stupid is what you deserve.) Nothing on the page mentions the presence of your face, or even points to it.

It's sometime after three in the afternoon when you decide that's enough of that. You grab your immensely long shoehorn to shove on your slip on sneakers—because you will never, ever, _ever_ wear velcro strap shoes—with their orthotic inserts, grab your cane, and head out to the park to take as many photos as you can of the hawk you saw wheeling overhead last week. You hope it's still there.

Steve is home when you get back. He tells you about his coworker, Natasha, and all the ways she skirts the rules, including the condescending way she talks to any customer she doesn't like. Which is a lot of them. She's been the source of at least two bad Yelp reviews, and there are only fifteen to date, but Sam apparently waved them off, saying you can't please everyone. That's his line, too, whenever anyone disagrees with his flavor combinations, although that doesn't happen often. 

"Wait—shit. Should I not talk about Sam?" Steve pauses over his styrofoam container of Chinese takeout. 

"Sam's your boss," you say, flat as you dig your fork into your pork fried rice. "Talk about him all you want. Why, you think it's gonna hurt my feelings?" 

"I don't know. I'm just trying to look out for you, Buck." He spears a piece of orange chicken on the end of his fork. "You know, be tactful." 

"If it bothers you that much, we can talk about how no Chinese takeout in this whole godforsaken town compares to any of the Chinese spots back in New York," you say, right before shoveling rice into your face. 

"God, you're not fucking kidding," Steve snorts. "We should go back and visit one of these days." 

"Get a good deep breath of that fucked up ocean air," you agree. "See what they've torn down out at Coney Island." 

"Find out how astronomical the rent is getting in this neighborhood or that one." 

"I heard Bushwick is up and coming." 

"I heard Bushwick is gone." 

You both pause for a second, then burst out laughing together. 

"Remember," Steve starts through his laughs, "god, remember what stupid assholes we used to be?" 

"What do you mean, used to be? You're a stupid asshole every day, Rogers." 

"Not like, riding the outside of the train right to the end of the platform stupid, though," Steve points out, the laughter subsiding in both of you. He looks out the window, pensive. "Remember Jones Beach?" 

You remember Jones Beach, alright. You remember when Steve's mom was still alive, and the long two-family train rides on the Long Island Rail Road, your family a big rowdy bunch of annoying kids, Steve's family just the two of them. You remember burying Steve in the sand with your sisters and triggering an asthma attack, and how you felt so horrible, sobbing and watching Steve get loaded into an ambulance, that your parents didn't even lecture you. You remember Steve still insisting the summer after that that he could race against you and the girls. 

You remember running down the beach. You remember your legs and arms pumping, whole and strong, pushing out sprays of sand under wet toes, your chest warming with the beginning of a sunburn. 

You remember, too, going so fast you left everyone else way back. You remember doubling back for Steve, because even asshole thirteen year old Bucky Barnes wouldn't leave his best friend behind. 

Now, of course, there's no more running. And it's Steve who has to double back for you. 

You both finish your meal in somber silence, and it's not until halfway through the next episode of Cutthroat Kitchen that regular conversation resumes. 

In the morning, you don't pour cereal. You whisk eggs to the best of your ability, in the heaviest bowl you and Steve own, but they splatter the counter, and your eggs come out flat and rubbery. You draw a new comic about whisking eggs that still ends with you shooting out of a rooftop.

That one doesn't go on the same page as the last comic. Instead you put it on a new page, with a full bleed repeating pattern of cooked eggs as its backdrop. You add the word _eggs_ itself to the word scramble, then finish it off with _parties, pastries_ , and _dogs are cool_.

You put all your photos of the hawk—all of them distant, the hawk a bird-shaped shadow against a cloudless sky—into a single file, shifting the images around and masking in bits and pieces of each one until you've got a single photograph with ten hawks following each other in a loop. You take another selfie, this one with an exaggerated, open-mouth smile, and trace over your phone screen to get a drawing that's even more grotesque. That goes under your first comic, taking up most of the page thanks to the scanner sizing it up. 

A few more pages—like a labored drawing of a pigeon with a bloody stump in place of a wing, looking as dumb and unaffected as any other pigeon despite it, with a speech bubble that says "HAHA BUSTED" floating behind it, and a cut-out hawk shadow in the corner—and you're willing to call this zine finished, right around when Steve's keys jangle in the door. 

The printer you picked out of the garbage spews multiple copies of your pages while you and Steve eat dinner—box mac, broccoli—and after dishes, Steve helps you staple each copy together, and folds them for you. Without looking, of course; he's honor-bound to not read his copy until you're asleep, and he's not allowed to talk to you about anything too weird or emotional. Mostly because if Steve started talking about why you keep drawing yourself so purposely ugly, or some of the other uncomfortable motifs in your work, you'd _have_ to talk about it, because he's the only one who can pull it out of you like that. Not even Doctor Park has quite that same power. 

While you're idly watching Netflix before bedtime, Steve talks just as idly about his day at work. While Sam is head chef, he's not the owner, and that self-same owner came in today to give Natasha a dressing-down for her way with customers, and the Yelp reviews that reflected it. Sam defended her, though, and while Steve can't remember the whole speech—he's not built for gossip like that—it was impassioned enough that Natasha got to stay, albeit with a warning. It's just retail chatter, of course, nothing interesting past its telling, but you can't help but snort and smile when Steve talks about Sam standing up for his employees. A less brave person would have stood back and deferred to the owner. 

Steve leaves a note on the fridge that you find as you're reaching for milk for cereal, asking you to visit again today. It doesn't mean that he misses you, since he sees your stupid unemployed face every day. It just means he wants you to get on the metro, go somewhere other than the bathroom, the kitchen or the park. 

At least you don't have to feel totally bad about the unemployed part. Steve helped you with your paperwork when you came home, and without him, you'd be up shit creek. The VA is notorious for fucking veterans over for the slightest error in paperwork, denying benefits for something as small as a missed signature on a single page in a tall stack of documents. You were too out of your head at the time, could have fucked that one up easily, but Steve laid his attention to detail all over it, and between your broken body and boiled brain, your life is 100% government funded. So many other vets aren't even half as lucky. 

And since you couldn't have done it without Steve, when he asks you to leave the goddamn house once in a while, you do it. 

You tell yourself it's for your friend when you take a little more time to put yourself together today. Steve deserves to have you show up not looking like a shambling pile of week-old garbage in front of his coworkers. Your T-shirt is a little more fitted without outlining your belly, your pants not riddled with holes or stains. Clothes from the bottom of the dresser drawer, that you've avoided because your everyday life is no occasion for anything that couldn't double as pajamas. You brush your hair a little more thoroughly, struggle through the bullshit of tying it back into a ponytail. Shaving, though, that's a little too much. That would be trying too hard. 

You're so focused on getting to Steve's job in time for the end of his shift that you actually arrive early, even with your slow pace. At least the elevators at both stations are working again, which means not contending with long stairs or broken down escalators. You make it to the pastry shop with twenty minutes to spare, and you're feeling so self congratulatory that when you walk in, you don't fully recognize or understand what you're seeing as a whole. 

Sam Wilson: You recognize this. Human, Steve's boss, opinionated head chef. Beautiful, charismatic, possible low key Marxist. 

Your zine: You recognize this, too. You finished this last night. The jokes are probably only funny to you, and your art is ugly. You think it's pretty good. 

Sam Wilson's downward gaze: Sam Wilson looks at things. He does it with his eyes. Sure, you've got that. 

Sam Wilson's hands, holding your zine: Sam Wilson has two hands, unlike you, and he can use them both to hold reading material for the above downward gaze. 

As a whole: Sam Wilson, looking down, at your zine, which he holds in his hands. Sam reading your zine. 

Sam looks up, and he grins like he's glad to see you as he puts down your zine with its pages open. "Hey, man, I was just—" 

Nope. You make a hard 180 turn that makes your knee yell extra loud, and limp the three steps out of the store as fast as you can. You're not ready to deal with whatever's happening there. 

Except, of course, your piece of shit best friend calls out your name before you're all the way out the door, and you're going to make both of you look real stupid if you just bail anyway. So you pause, turn back around slower this time to allow for the fire and knives in your knee, and give Steve a close-lipped smile paired with the hairiest pair of eyeballs you can manage. 

"You're early!" Steve says as he restocks a tray of tarts in the case from the baking sheet he's holding. Sam takes the zine back up again, but instead of reading it he just watches you and Steve like he's watching a fight brewing from across the street. "Buck, don't stand in the door, come all the way in." 

"Steve," you say, trying not to grit your teeth, "can I ask you something? Outside?" 

Steve's not a dummy. He glances at the zine, then at you, before resuming his task. "Let me just finish out my shift and you can ask me anything you want," he says, which is so goddamn _tactical_ on his part because what are you gonna do in front of Sam? Nothing, because you're a punk, and Steve knows it. Then he takes his empty baking sheet and disappears into the back. 

Silence fills the little shop. Sam looks about a quarter as embarrassed as you feel. 

"I, uh." Sam holds up the zine, which is at least blessedly closed again. "Listen, man, I don't know what's going on here, but you can have this back, if you want. Sorry." He holds it out. 

You finally come to the counter, leaning your hip and cane against it so you can accept the zine. Its highlighter green cover looks extra gaudy against the fine white marble of the countertop. 

"Steve brought it in this morning. He didn't say it was some private thing he snuck out the house or anything, just said his roommate was an artist, and I should see how cool this was." Sam shrugs deep, rolling one side of his lower lip between his canines. "If I'd known—" 

"I mean, it's not private," you say as you pull open the flap of your messenger bag and drop the zine in. "Not exactly, I mean—" You shake your head, a quick vibration like you're trying to reset. "I make like, five copies an issue, and then I don't do anything with them but let Steve read it while I'm asleep." When you say it out loud, it sounds like a massive waste of paper, a stupid vanity project. And it is, and you fucking suck. Jesus Christ. 

"For what it's worth, I thought it was pretty cool," Sam says, giving you this awkward half-smile as he shrugs again, with his hands in his apron pockets. Your face is on fire again, and this time you bet he can see it happening. "I really dug the comics." And the smile becomes a full one, which melts your face off completely. "I mean like, if that's cool to say." 

"S-sure," comes tumbling out of your face. "I mean—" What are you supposed to say, again? Come on, Barnes, you can do this. "Thank you." There it is. 

"But, uh, listen. The hawk pictures? That's what those were, right?" 

That snaps you out of your compliment-induced fog, and you brace yourself for criticism. "Yeah." 

"If you wanted, I, uh—" This dude sure shrugs a lot. "I've got—" Sam scratches the back of his neck, then holds his hand out, palm up and plaintive. "Look, you wanna see a hawk up close?" 

Okay. That's new. 

"A hawk?" 

"Yeah, like..." What is Sam doing? You think he might be scuffing the toe of his kitchen clog on the tile, even, though you're just guessing by what you can see above the counter. "You free this Friday?" 

"I got nothin' happening." At all, on any day. You give Sam a shrug of your own. 

"You can come to the shop around five-ish, if you want." Sam coughs into his fist. "If you want. And you can bring your camera." 

"I just use my phone," you say, which doesn't answer anything he asked. "But, uh, yeah. I can do that." 

"Cool, alright, so I'll just," Sam thumbs over his shoulder, puffing out his cheeks, "I'll just—" 

"I think I've got everything prepped for Nat," Steve says as he pops out from behind the white curtain, this time with a backpack. He's learned that Keds don't really cut it in a busy kitchen, and now he brings his own ugly kitchen clogs to work. He'd leave them in the kitchen, but the one time he tried it, Natasha filled them with frozen pizza dough—which she must have made on her own time—that thawed overnight and ballooned until the clogs could barely be seen under it. She claimed it as a well-intentioned prank that signaled friendliness, but you just think it's a good thing you haven't met her yet. 

"Good! Good. Good." Sam rubs his hands together, and you think you might detect relief. You notice that this time he doesn't look in the back to check on Steve's work. You push off the counter, grabbing your cane. "Clock out, then. Get outta here." 

"Yeah, alright," Steve says as he pulls a tablet over and taps it a few times. "There we go. See you on Thursday, Sam?" 

"Nah, I got that day off. See you Friday, Steve." Sam casts his eyes your way. "And uh, see you Friday, too, James?" 

He called you James, just like you introduced yourself. "Yeah, I'll be here." Steve heads for the door, and you follow. Then you pause, and—

"Here." You return to the counter, reach into your bag and plop the zine between you and Sam. "I mean, if you want it." 

"Yeah, man, of course I want it." He slides it to his side of the counter, grinning. "This is art." 

"If that's what you wanna call it." 

"Yeah, that's what I wanna call it." Sam somehow finds a way to smile even bigger. 

And with that, you've officially hit maximum dosage on Sam's smile before it actually kills you. "Bye," you say abruptly, with a turn just as abrupt that you know you'll regret tonight as much as that last one. You stump out through the door Steve is holding, and once it closes you tell him to shut the fuck up before he's even said anything. 

"You're a real piece of work, Rogers, you know that?" you snap once you've actually sat down on the train. 

"I'm a piece of work, sure, but _you've_ got a date, Barnes," Steve laughs next to you. He always gets the window seat, mostly so you can get up easier. 

"A what?" He's acting like he doesn't know you wanna beat him with your cane until he can't talk, and god, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he thinks he did you a real live favor. 

"A date?" Now Steve has the gall to look confused. "Didn't Sam—" 

"Didn't Sam what, Steve?" You clench the grip of your cane all the tighter. "He said he wants to help me edit a page of my zine. He didn't ask me to goddamn dinner." 

"But when I came out, he—" He frowns. "I swear to _God_ it looked like he was asking you out, Buck." You give him a hard look, and he raises his hand, sitting all the way up. "Swear on my mother's grave." 

You sigh. "So you gave him my zine to, what, play matchmaker? You thought he'd be so attracted to a drawing of like, a mutilated bird, that he'd ask me out?" 

"I dunno." For a moment, you're both quiet, just swaying slightly with the train. You think, not for the first or last time, what a far cry it is from the whiplashing rattle of the R train. 

"I don't know why you don't actually put that zine out anyway, Bucky. It's good, it's not stuck up, and it's honest. Why make more than one copy if you're not gonna distribute?" 

"It's a bunch of bad drawings with a couple staples put through 'em," you mutter. "It's not—I dunno, Steve, how about you leave me alone?" 

"I would if I weren't your best friend. You know that." He slings a brotherly arm around your shoulder, and you sigh again. 

"Yeah, I know." 

Thankfully Steve doesn't talk about it anymore when you get home. Instead he goes on this amazing tirade against pumpkin spice, and how in a matter of weeks Sam has opened his eyes to the truth of how oversaturated the pastry world is with pumpkin spice shit. It's worse, you see, because there's never even any pumpkin involved; it's just cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Nobody who likes pumpkin spice actually likes the taste of pumpkins. You check your phone and Steve has ripped on pumpkin spice for a solid half hour, somehow, all without any interruption on your part. 

You look through your small pile of zines while you wait for sleep to finally sneak up on you. What do these look like through Sam's eyes? These pictures of how much you hate yourself; how guilty you feel to be alive, especially if you're going to squander it hating yourself. You barely know anything about Sam, like nothing deeper than knowing he knows how to make a pie crust way better than your mother has ever achieved. Or that he seemed to like your fucked up self-indulgent zine. 

Steve has Tuesdays and Wednesdays off every week, and on one of those days he always drags you all over town if you don't plead on behalf of your screaming joints. Thankfully on Tuesday he takes you to a movie, even after he'd been talking about museums; he waits until everyone else has left the theater so you can take your time standing, hobbling out of the row on stiff legs and tender feet. Then you go for lunch, which you pay for with your government money, since you're not doing much else with it apart from bills. 

Wednesday you just recover from Tuesday while Steve putters around the house cleaning up; he constantly reassures you he's got this, and you don't need to try to help. _No, Bucky, stay on the couch. What am I, a monster?_

Thursday Steve goes to work, doing his one late shift of the week. Sam said he had off today. You wonder what he does in his spare time. You wonder if he's actually looked at the zine since you handed it back to him, and you don't even know if you hope he has or not. 

Friday you wake up at 3am. Then 5:30am, by which time Steve is already gone. Then 7am, then 8am, and you decide you'd better just actually get up. You should actually go to your appointment with Doctor Park today, since you missed last week's. You shouldn't be missing appointments at all, anyway. _You ungrateful fuck,_ you berate yourself silently, and spend the next five minutes totally unproductive while you think about how you're a leech on society. 

"Well, you look better than the last time I saw you, two weeks ago," Doctor Park says as you settle into your favorite chair in the room, which is also the widest, most beat up, and with the deepest cushions. "How have you been?" 

With Doctor Park, _I dunno_ and _alright_ never cuts it, so you've learned to skip that step. Just lay out some facts, let her take it from there. "I printed a new issue of my zine. I might be making a new friend." 

"Which would you rather talk about first?" she asks, scribbling with only the barest glance downward. 

"Uh." You wish now you hadn't brought up the zine, but she knows you make them, and she'd probably ask at some point if you'd made a new one. "Sam." 

"Where did you meet Sam?" 

So you run through her list of questions that shape Sam for her as a new figure in your life. You met Sam at Steve's new job. He's tall but not as tall as you, he's black, he's from New York. Harlem, you clarify. He's nice. He gives a shit, or is really good at acting like it. 

Okay, yes, he's attractive. Stunning. Jesus, you hate talking about your sexuality with this woman, even though she's never given you reason to think she might be homophobic or anything. No, you just hate talking about it, point blank. You let that slip. Now you have to talk about your feelings, like how sexuality is for other people. You fucked up on that one, Barnes. Another one for a long list. 

Sam saw the zine. Now you have to talk about what's between its covers, too, except now that you've let loose about that other shit this part comes easier, and Doctor Park is so good at never showing anything but interest. What a doctor. What a professional. Five goddamn stars. One of these days you'll find someplace to leave her a review, and make sure you do it while you're in a good mood. 

You end the session talking about your benefits. Doctor Park reminds you for the umpteenth time that you can always be fitted for a prosthetic, and you ignore her for the umpteenth time, too. You don't need another step in your morning routine. Then she reminds you, too, that receiving full benefits is not a sin. Others' suffering is not reason enough for you to suffer, too. 

In one ear, out the other. You nod anyway. 

Anyway, it's not like you feel so guilty you'd get yourself cut off—haha, like your arm, get it, haha—because that'd fuck things up for Steve. She tells you to hang onto at least that much, if you can't accept yet that you deserve help just because you do. Then she looks at her dainty little wristwatch, and tells you time is up. She sends you to the receptionist to make your appointment for next week, and the receptionist sends you out the door with a Tootsie Roll in turn. 

You spend the four hours between the end of your appointment and when you're supposed to meet Sam by sitting in various spots in the Smithsonian. Nobody bothers a guy with a cane, one arm, and a haggard look. Not in DC, at least. 

With so much time to kill, you still end up early arriving to the pastry shop. Again. Either you're really getting it together or it's just getting more obvious how little there is to your life. Steve's already ended his reasonably-sized shift, and at the front of the shop is a lithe woman with bottle auburn hair pulled into a bun, and a possibly permanent expression of judgment pasted on her sharp-featured face. This must be Natasha. 

She takes you in, leaning forward on the counter while a Cheshire smile curls into existence across her lips. "You must be James," she says, with a voice that suggests she's smoked slightly more than her fair share of cigarettes. "I've heard of _you_." 

"I've heard of you, too," you say, shifting your grip on your cane so you can lean on it a little heavier. "Natasha." 

"Sam said you can sit there." She points with a chipped red-painted fingernail at the one chair that's cropped up in the window. It's a folding chair, but like, one of those nicer ones, white metal with striped cushioning on the seat and backrest in bright primary colors. Like it came from Target instead of the dollar store. You sit down, never taking your eyes off Natasha. 

Someone else comes in while you wait. "Hi, Clint," Natasha says to the doughy-faced white dude who looks at you with blatant curiosity. She flashes him a malevolent smile, bouncing her eyebrows. 

"Who's that?" Clint asks, at what he must think is a discreet volume. He's wrong. 

"Some guy. I think Sam has a date," Natasha replies, at a volume that lets you know she doesn't care if you hear her gossiping about you. Then she and Clint just look at you with blank expressions, broken only by Clint cracking a big goofy smile. Alright, that's enough of that. You look out the window instead while a group of customers enter the store. 

"Alright, that's that. You guys should be good for the night." Sam's voice cuts through the music, customer voices and employee chatter, and you look back at the counter to find him in slim-cut jeans, a T-shirt that strains across pecs previously hidden by his chef jacket, and Pumas instead of clogs. He looks sleek, you wanna say, in a way no one can be in a chef jacket and checkered pants. 

Sam looks your way, and laughs as he approaches you. "I'm guessing you met Tweedledee and Tweedledevious, over there," he says, jabbing with his thumb at the pair behind the counter. Natasha snaps gum, and Sam snaps his fingers in return. "What'd I tell you about gum, Nat?" 

"Against the rules," she says, right before blowing a big bubble. 

"Do I need to say it again, employee of the month? Let's go." He points in a direction you guess has a trash can in it. Natasha sighs, spits out her gum in a big arc that lands with a metallic thud and a plastic swish in a trash can you can't see. "That girl is nasty sometimes," Sam mutters. "Anyway, you ready, James?" 

"I don't know why I wouldn't be," you say as you haul yourself up on your cane. 

"Uh. I dunno, bathroom break?" Sam holds open the door. "After you." 

He leads you to his car, babbling the whole way that he should have mentioned that this might be a longer outing than you're prepared for, you can bail if you want, he'd understand. But if you do come, it'll be really cool. You tell him you're good for whatever. 

"This," Sam says as he holds open the front passenger side door, "is Lucinda." 

"You named your car?" You hang your cane on the car door and grab the inside handle to hold yourself steady while you get in. 

"Like that's so weird," Sam snorts. He passes you your cane when you realize you put it just out of reach of the seat, shuts the door on you and walks around to get behind the wheel. "We're driving for a little while, though. Last chance to get out and go do something less time-consuming." 

"I'm already sitting, so..." You gesture at the dashboard. "My phone's charged and I'm ready to look at a bird." 

"Well alright then." Sam grins and starts the engine. "Let's go look at a bird." 

"What is it, anyway, like half an hour?" You've lived in DC a few years already and you still have no concept of the land around it, and you have even less of a concept of where someone'd need to go to mess around with a hawk. 

"'Bout an hour if we don't hit traffic," Sam says, sliding a pair of aviators onto his face. "I think we can survive with this playlist though. Gets me through this drive every time." There's an iPod already plugged into the aux cord, and he fiddles with it with barely a glance. "There we go." 

"Stevie Wonder?" you ask after the lyrics actually kick in. You're surprised you actually recognize his voice. 

"One of the best driving songs out there, far as I'm concerned," he chuckles as he pulls up to a red light. " _Powers keep on lyin'..._ " 

The drive has a lot of quiet in it, at first, short of Sam's favorite driving jams. For one, there's so much of DC you've never seen, and you can't stop looking out the window like a fascinated dog. For two, Sam is like, a red belt at small talk, but you're a black belt at not knowing how to reply in a way that doesn't make you sound like an asshole, so you just don't. (You can already envision Doctor Park's sigh.) 

The classic funk that makes up the beginning of the playlist kind of eases the silence, though, songs everybody knows, doesn't have to think about too hard. Gives Sam something to sing along to without shame when he asks you about what you do for a living, and you mutter something incomprehensible. 

The city doesn't take long to vanish. DC's actually kind of a small town. For a while it's just houses, and the music gives way to something more modern, even if you can't really place the artist. Then that song ends, goes into some kind of organ music. 

_My fingertips, and my lips..._

Sam clears his throat into his fist, then again. _You run my mind, boy, running on my mind boy—_

"Is this Frank Ocean?" Steve likes that guy, plays what few songs he's made sometimes when he's cleaning around the house. 

"Yeah, uh—" _—so buff, and so strong / I'm nervous Forrest—_ Sam reaches for the console. "He's aight." 

"I think he's actually pretty—" But Sam's already changed the song, hit next to go right into a Justin Timberlake song you recognize from your college years. God, are you really that old? Is Justin Timberlake that old? 

"What do you listen to, anyway?" Sam is visibly flustered, clearing his throat yet again, both hands firmly on the wheel. 

"Uh." Your brain gets scrambled the second you try to remember your own taste in music. You have to resist the urge to take out your phone and check what you've got on there for your jaunts into the park, because nobody fucking does that. You're pretty sure nobody does that. "Morrissey. Dead or Alive. The Cure. Stuff like that." 

That at least gets Sam to laugh, even if it's through his nose. "Oh, like you were alive in the 80s for that." 

"You mean the same way you were alive in the 70s for Rick James?" 

Sam pauses, then laughs for real, a good guffaw coming from deep in his throat. "Alright, fine. Got me. We both posers." 

Ironically, the playlist is almost all modern music the rest of the way there. Sam asks how you met Steve. For once, you get to tell your childhood memories to someone who isn't a licensed professional, and for once, you get hit back with someone else's. You tell Sam about being the only kid you knew who ever tried to play Shoot the Freak at Coney Island; Sam tells you about the biggest block party he ever saw get shut down by the cops. He doesn't have siblings like you, but he has more cousins than he knows what to do with, and as he nears his mid-thirties he's pretty sure he still hasn't met them all. The suburbs give way to trees and open spaces. You both keep swapping stories of all the trouble you used to get into, and you can't believe how much you're laughing. 

And then he's slowing the car, pulling into a parking spot. There's almost nothing here, just some fencing to separate the grassy land from the road and some beat up signs that declare parking is available in this dirt-and-gravel clearing. Off in the distance is what looks like a tiny house with a big cage sticking out the side, and way beyond that is the edge of the woods. Sam goes to the trunk of the car while you go about extracting yourself from Lucinda, and while you're busy staring out at the massive wide field, he comes up next to you, strapping on a big leather glove. 

"Are you real with that? Is that serious?" you ask with a snort. A second later you realize, yet again, what an asshole you're being, but Sam seems to take it in stride. Or he's focused on something else, way more likely—like the whistle he puts to his lips as he holds his gloved hand high, and blows twice. 

At first you feel like Sam might be tricking you. You don't know why he'd go to all this trouble just to fuck with your head, but you don't really know the man, even after learning all the names of his aunts on his mother's side. Then a tiny dark shape emerges from the tree line, and wheels a couple times before heading toward you. A hawk, just as promised. 

The hawk lights on Sam's glove with a lot of flapping, and Sam lowers his arm with practiced smoothness, pockets the whistle so he can scratch this weapon of a bird right on top of its head. 

"This," Sam says as you lean your cane and yourself against the car to pull out your phone, "is Redwing. She's a red tailed hawk, and she stays out here eating all the wildlife she wants while I bust my ass in Washington." 

"By herself?" You take picture after picture, not even sure what kind of shot you want beyond knowing you have to get what you can. She's a lot of ruddy browns and tans, pretty against the green of the field and blue of the sky. 

"She's not a parrot. Hawks are pretty self-sufficient. But, uh, this land belongs to Clint's folks, anyway. So when I can't get up here to say hi, his brother Barney helps me out, makes sure she gets her warm meals and stays out of the rain. I send money to get her a checkup for parasites every once in a while." He takes a different pose, holding Redwing out to get himself out of the frame. "I mean, he says he doesn't need it, but you know. Is this working for you, by the way?" 

"You don't have to get out of the frame, you know." Your cheeks heat just a little as you say it, and you want to take your whole face aside and ask it just what the fuck its problem is. There's nothing weird about directing the photo, there's nothing saucy about letting Sam know he's as much a part of this experience as the goddamn bird. Sam brings Redwing in close, framing her with the navy blue of his shirt, and you take about five more shots of that than you meant to. Shit. 

Sam takes you closer to the middle of the field and shows you a few of Redwing's routines, and you come dangerously close to filling up your phone's storage capacity documenting it. It's fascinating to watch the way Sam interacts with this animal, talking to her like she's a person whenever she comes back to him. He never ignores you, though. 

An hour later, the sky is still basically light out, but this late into August the summer solstice is long gone and the sun is starting to say its goodbyes. Your body is screaming for mercy, and you lay yourself out on the grass with a thump. Redwing is off somewhere nearby, feasting on a hapless rabbit Sam had rustled out of hiding for her, and honestly you're a little glad she's out of view. Sam sits down next to your head, leaning back on one arm with the other slung over his knee, his glove off. You're both quiet, watching the sun dip with all its fiery drama. 

"So do you drive people you've only met twice out of town to show them a bird on like, a regular basis, or...?" Your heart beats almost painfully as you say it, and you ask yourself what the fuck has gotten into you. This isn't even brave—this is just setting yourself up to get your feelings hurt. 

Sam turns his head to look at you, the side of him painted gold by the dying sunlight. "Nah. Just the weird ones." He grins, and your heart almost kicks a hole through your ribs. 

"That's rich coming from a dude with a secret falcon hobby that he keeps in a house outside the city like a mistress," you say, pointing at the glove that lies between your knee and his ankle. 

"Listen, falconry is a _sport_ ," Sam sniffs, but mocking. Teasing. He's fucking teasing you. 

"Okay but so what you're saying is, there's just something about weirdos that compels you to invite them on secret, undisclosed adventures that take hours out of a day you could have spent weirdo-free, in your own apartment with your feet up on the coffee table." Your dumbass brain sees trouble and runs right for it. You'd better brace yourself. 

Sam looks contemplative for a brief moment, then nods with a shrug of his shoulders. "Yeah, overall I'd say I find weirdos pretty compelling." 

Your lungs suddenly feel so much smaller. "Listen, is this a date?" Your voice comes from somewhere else, _someone_ else, because that couldn't have been you to say that. 

Sam looks around, like he's checking for eavesdroppers, scratches the side of his face. "Do you wannit to be?" 

One heartbeat. _Thu-thump._ Of course you want this to be a date. Of course you want Sam. Who wouldn't want Sam? Who wouldn't want someone as funny, as thoughtful, as beautiful as him? 

Two heartbeats. _Thu-thump._ Of course it can't be a date. Nobody should have to put up with you, not even Steve, but Sam especially doesn't deserve the burden of your existence. All the ways you're fucked up, pitted against all the ways he's not. Not even for one night. 

Three. _Thu-thump._ You're taking too long to answer. You're going to hurt him, you piece of shit, and it's going to look like you think you're too good for him when you're not better than anyone at all. Sam chews his bottom lip, flicks his eyes down at the ground. You don't even realize how much he's leaned over you until he starts to rock back. 

Four. _Th-th—_

"Yeah," you whisper, the word scratching your throat as it comes up. 

Sam breaks into gentle laughter, looking into the last of the sun before casting his eyes back on you. "Then this is a date, James." 

"You can call me Bucky," you say, still whispering. 

Sam nods, laughing a little more. "Alright then, Bucky." 

When he leans over you again he plants one hand next to your ear, puts the other to your cheek with gentle fingers. And he comes down, eyes heavy-lidded, lips barely parted, and he kisses you. 

You might remember how to do this. Closed mouths keep it safe, make it less apparent how rusty you are. You kiss back, again and again, just presses of pouted lips against Sam's. You slide your hand up Sam's arm, over his shoulder to rest on the back of his neck. You can do this. You can—

Except Sam's lips part, and his tongue presses against your teeth, and _god_ that sends a big line of electricity straight fucking down, something you haven't felt in years. Panic waits at the edge of your consciousness but you push it back, give Sam entry while you pull him closer. You try to mimic him, hope some muscle memory or another dusts itself off and kicks in. 

Heat radiates from Sam's whole body, and there's another jolt when he moans against you, something soft and fluttering and involuntary. He finally takes his hand from your face, drags it down the side of your body until it rests at your waist—

Now, of course, is when your hip joint chooses to start bursting with pain, which means you didn't do your stretches quite right this morning. It also means you shout into Sam's mouth, and he bounces back instantly. "Jesus, Bucky, what—" 

"My hip," you grit, squeezing your eyes shut as you hiss. It's like fireworks going off right in the joint, punishing you on loop with the same level of pain every time. You hate this. You hate this so much. You can't have anything, and now Sam has to be here and deal with this and honestly, honestly, he should get in the car and drive away, leave you to rot into the dirt. 

"What can I do?" Sam is urgent in his concern, sitting back on his heels with his hands held at the ready. "You need me to call someone? Steve? An ambulance?" 

"Just let me—" You hiss again as another burst hits you, and you grab onto the grass like a handhold while you try to stretch your leg the way you're supposed to, just to get it to quiet down enough for you to get your focus back. Sam offers you his arm, and you're so fucked right now you just grab on, use his forearm for leverage so you can get the leg back without getting up. 

When the pain finally abates, your energy is sapped, and you drop back down onto the earth, panting. "'m sorry," you mumble, your arm over your eyes so you can't see how disappointed Sam has got to be. 

"Nothing to say sorry for." You drop your arm back to your side so you can see Sam, sitting hunched over with his legs splayed down by your knees. "Steve mentioned you were a vet." 

"Yeah." Now he's gonna ask why. 

"How'd it happen?" There it is. The concerned citizen. 

"IED." Flat. You've told this version of the story a thousand times and change, to any therapist, surgeon, family member, nosy pisshole on the street. "On deployment. It was under the Jeep I was in." 

"VA cover you?" 

You try to give Sam a sharp look, but he's not looking back at you. Tearing up the grass between his thighs, focused on that instead. "Yeah," you say, careful and slow. "All the way. Said between all the damage and missing pieces, and my brain getting put in a blender, I was eligible for the full ride. Steve helped me with the paperwork." 

Sam doesn't say anything. He pours torn blades of grass onto his jeans, goes in for another swath. 

"You know someone who served?" 

Sam's nod is tiny. Which is what tells you that's not the whole answer. 

"Did you serve?" 

"Yeah." The word crumbles as it leaves his lips. He pours more grass onto his pants, and finally looks at you again. "Air Force. Pararescue." 

"What brought you home?" Because even as whole as Sam looks, with his limbs intact and unmarred, his job secure and his laugh strong, there's no chance he came home willingly with a reaction like this. There's nothing like trauma to reduce a man to near-muteness and the coping mechanisms of a child. 

"Riley." It makes his voice thick to say it. 

Sam looks up at the sky, and even from down here, his eyes glitter with memory. And fear. 

"Watched his ass get blown out of the sky like someone was shooting skeet. Couldn't—couldn't do fuckin' _nothing_ , just got hit next like I'd never even been to training." He grinds the heel of his palm into his eye, sniffs long and deep. "I—? I parachuted to safety. Wasn't even enough of Riley left to send back to his folks." 

The stars are out now, crowding the dark with their light. "I came back," he says, his voice breaking on it, "and I couldn't even be in New York anymore. I couldn't look his mama in the eye, not when she was lookin' at me like it wasn't my fault. I couldn't—" Sam hiccups, gritting his teeth. "—I couldn't be in all these places, all these places he used to be—! Like—like how the fuck _dare I_ be where he can't be!" 

He turns away from you, shame choking the sobbing that shakes his upper body. And when he starts getting up, you know you should let him, because you don't know him, you don't fucking know him and you're disgusting on top of that. Except you _do_ know, you _know_ and you shove yourself up by your one arm until your hip aches in warning, until you're sitting up, and you wrap that arm around Sam, pulling him in tight. 

For everything that Sam says he is, you refute it. When he says he's a coward, you whisper into his scalp that he's only stupid if he thinks so. When he says it again, you squeeze him and tell him he's brave, he's brave, he's alive and he's brave. All these things you could never believe about yourself—but Sam deserves to know it about himself. You shift until you're kneeling, despite the fire it sets off in your bad knee and ankle, big and painful enough to make you want to scream. Instead you rock Sam back and forth, his head against your chest. 

Once Sam is quiet again, you hold him for a little while longer, watching the stars. You can feel his eyelashes through your shirt when he blinks, and you can feel his pulse where his neck is pressed against your body. 

So it's sudden when he gets up, pushing off your shoulders to rise all the quicker. "I'm sorry," he says, in a very different voice from the ones you've heard today. "I shouldn't—I shouldn't have—" 

"There's nothing to be sorry about," you say, echoing him. Where the fuck is your cane? You keep groping around in the grass for it, but everything hurts and you can barely move. 

Sam finds it in an instant, and he holds it while he gives you his forearm and bears the brunt of your weight in pulling you up. "I should get you back to Steve." Gone is the warmth you've come to associate with Sam, from his words, from his face. "He'll kick my ass tomorrow for getting you back to DC so late." Not even a smile. 

"I wouldn't worry about Steve," you say dryly, hissing again while you start the interminable trek back to the car, about a football field away. Sam doesn't reply, though, or say anything at all while you walk, just stopping every ten feet or so to let you catch up. With every pause, you feel more and more like a fool. 

He holds open the passenger door again, holds your cane one more time while you fold each harrowing piece of your body into the seat. He shuts the door, gets behind the wheel, starts the engine. All in silence. 

"Sam—" 

The playlist starts up right where it left off. _—high go to waste, but can you taste, a little taste—_

"Put your address into the GPS." Sam unclips the device from its mooring, holds it out until you take it. He starts backing the car up toward the road. 

_—cain, baby, I want you—_

"What the fuck is happening right now?" 

_—me good, fuck me long, fuck me numb—_

"I can't—" The car halts as Sam takes his hands off the wheel and holds them around his face in claws. "Right now, I—" _—love me none, love me—_

Sam hits the power button to the stereo with a violent jab, and when he pulls his hand away you can see he's shaking. "I can't do this, James." So much for _you can call me Bucky_. 

It's not like there's anything you can say to that. Not like you're this big prize, anyway, not like it's worth arguing why he should give this a chance—whatever _this_ is. You input your address, lean across your own body to give the GPS back. Sam clips it back into place, and for the rest of the ride, the stilted robot voice is the only sound in the car. 

It's not midnight by the time Sam pulls into your driveway, but it's late enough that Steve bursts out of the house when he sees the car. He helps you and your stiff, abused joints out of the car, sends you doddering up the walkway while he chats with Sam, mostly about work tomorrow. You hear the dreaded words _Did you have fun?_ and Sam avoids a yes or a no, just tells Steve about showing you Redwing. Good enough for Steve, who bids Sam goodnight and catches up with you right at the couple of steps at the front door. 

"I guess you had a good time," Steve says, pushing the door open ahead of you. 

"Sure." You deadpan it, shuffling past and heading right for your room. 

"You alright, Buck?" He locks the door and follows you to your door. 

"I'm just real tired, Steve." You throw your cane at the chair full of poorly folded laundry that sits in the corner of your room, and it bounces off to land right in the middle of the floor where you're gonna hate picking it up tomorrow morning. 

"Oh, uh, okay—" 

"Goodnight." And you shut the door in his face. 

Your head is empty as you lay it on your pillow. There's no room for self-pity, or anger, or any of your usual stable of ugly feelings. There's only exhaustion. And when you finally do fall asleep, there are only dreams of Sam's falcon, falling endlessly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the beautiful dog collage was made by [notcuddles](http://notcuddles.tumblr.com/) using pictures of dogs you might recognize from [the old friends senior dog sanctuary](http://ofsds.org/index.html)! all other images were made with one purposely terrible hand by me. 
> 
> anyway, uh, originally this wasn't going to be chaptered, but now it will have two! which also means that while i know roughly what i want for the second chapter, there's a lot that hasn't been filled in or planned yet. what that means for you as a reader and commenter is that i totally encourage predictions, hopes, or other thoughts on what you might like to see happen! of course, you don't have to do any of those things, but as always, i welcome any and all commentary, regardless of "eloquence" or whatever.


	2. sam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sam puts a lot of things together, as much as things fall apart. also, shit gets raunchy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i literally cannot believe how long this got. i cannot believe also that it's almost midnight at the writer's space where i am? i cannot believe a lot of facts surrounding this chapter. anyway, i haven't written explicit nsfw in a very long time so idk how i feel about what i've got here but i think mostly positive
> 
> edit: the html tags in the text logs keep messing up so atm it is what it is

The drive home feels longer than it is. You exist outside your own head, only saved from vehicular disaster by the late hour and the quiet streets you take to get home. 

Your whole body feels numb. You pull into your driveway, get Lucinda all the way into the garage and drag yourself into the house through the side door. You haven't eaten since probably noon today, the center of your twelve hour shift, but you look in the fridge out of habit and you just feel nauseous. You grab a Stella out of the bottom of the fridge door despite that, pop the cap and take it back to your room where you set it on the dresser so you can pull your shirt and pants off. 

"Come on, Wilson," you mutter as you grip the top of the dresser, staring yourself down in the attached mirror. You take a more than healthy swig of the beer, wipe your mouth against the top of your forearm, and return to your staring contest. There's a panic attack hovering all around you, brushing at your arms and legs with evil little tendrils. Deep breath. Deeper. You have to push it back. "Come on, come on, come on." Rocking back and forth a little bit. 

You almost had something, tonight. For the first time since you came home, you let someone in and had them cross that threshold gladly. James—Bucky, he'd wanted you to call him, in the moments before you fell apart—made you feel _real_ for once, and you're practiced in the art of being your own puppet. 

But being real is dangerous. Vulnerable. You can't put Bucky through dealing with your shit when you can't even deal with it yourself. And you can't put yourself through getting attached. 

"Get it together," you berate yourself, shaking your head violently. Long, deep breath. Hold it. You have work in the morning, and neither cookies nor customers care about your emotional problems. 

You'll probably never see Bucky again, anyway. You doubt accompanying Steve on the Metro is reason enough for him to risk seeing your thoughtless ass, especially at the slow clip he goes at. You whisper to yourself it doesn't matter, take more deep breaths until the lie sticks. You drink the rest of the Stella and leave the bottle on the dresser's glass top, lay down and set all four of your morning alarms, because you know tomorrow's gonna feel rough. 

You dream, for the first time in months. All you remember later is feeling the rocket tearing through the machine around you, is seeing fire, is waking up three times gasping for air. Your sheets are soaked with sweat. 

Waking up (all the way) feels like there's gravel under your skin and spoiled milk in your stomach. It always feels this way when you go to sleep anxious, especially when it's only for a few hours. The shower at least gets rid of the gravel, but the coffee only rocks your stomach harder, and you almost puke it right back up. And you should eat something, now on hour sixteen or so of no food if you count sleeping hours, especially when you realize your hands are shaking real bad. 

Food sounds bad even just thinking about the word, so you reach into your pantry to grab a protein bar, throw yourself dressed and otherwise ready into your car, and drive off to work. 

Steve is waiting for you and your keys when you arrive. Morning setup goes in complete silence for the first hour as you roll out chilled pie dough from the fridge while Steve gets to work on filling prep. By six Steve feels just a little more awake, especially with the summer sun all the way in the sky, and he fiddles with the cracked old Galaxy phone attached to a single speaker to put on slow jazz ballads like he's a sad teenager in the thirties. He rolls ball after ball of lemon rosemary cookie dough between his clean palms, singing along in falsetto. _Is it a sin, is it a crime, loving you, dear, like I do? If it's a crime, then I'm guilty..._

"Singing at this hour is a crime," you mutter as you slide the first tray of cookies into the second oven and shut the double doors behind them. 

"That's rich, coming from you," Steve says with a snort, dropping another dough ball on the greased tray. 

"Is that some _bite_ in your voice I doth detect, little boy?" You look over your shoulder with arched brows. "Got some opinions to express?" 

"Me? No, no," Steve says, matching you brow for brow. "Nothing to say about the way you belt out John Legend when the shop's quiet." 

"I make for beautiful accompaniment to that man's voice." You pull the double chocolate cookie dough from the fridge, get a tray so you can get another cookie batch started. "I'm gonna put you on whip in a second if you tell me one more thing about my burgeoning musical career." 

"Oh no, not whipped cream, anything but that," Steve says with absolutely no inflection, never pausing in his task. No one actually likes doing the whipped cream canisters except Natasha, who takes some real glee in puncturing the CO2 bullets, and in violently shaking the canisters by moshing all over back of house. Clint can never judge when the canisters are actually empty, and has been covered in exploded whipped cream on more than one occasion, including the time it got on his hearing aid because he'd turned his head to quip back at Natasha. 

By nine you've taken over the back of house speaker with the Supremes, because you need something that's going to make you move, and Paul Robeson is not the one to do that. _Now you don't really want me! You just keep me hangin' on!_ You realize you're belting out the words just like Steve accused you just a couple hours ago, but your hips are swaying while you're whipping egg whites for meringues, which always hit the oven last, right as the brownie sheets come out. Even Steve's narrow ass is bopping while he sets tarts in the front case. 

It doesn't escape your notice, though, that Steve won't dance if he catches you looking. In fact, you've definitely noticed the tension that's settled over the shop ever since Steve's little crack at your singing. 

Whatever. It's not your business. Steve's an employee, and once the store opens at ten with the two of you in clean aprons, he acts like it, too, greeting customers with a gleaming smile and serving scones and coffee like it's all he's programmed to do. He fields the same questions over and over—no, there's no iced coffee, yes, scones are our only breakfast pastry, but we have a savory and a sweet one, no, we don't have a public bathroom—as if he's hearing them for the first time, never cracking that retail persona. You'd call it eerie if you didn't love what it meant for customer complaints. 

The early afternoon rush hits, with every government employee within spitting distance looking for a sugar bump after lunch, something to take back to their desks. With baking duties finished for now, you join Steve at the counter, ringing customers as he fills their orders. By the time the flood of office workers has ebbed, you have to pour yourself some coffee to get energy back, snacking on a broken lemon cookie. 

"I should be used to these rushes, but it never doesn't tire my ass out," you sigh between bites. 

"Mmm." Steve leans on the counter, his whole back facing you. 

You purse your lips, then take another sip of coffee. "Loved that one lady who wouldn't get off the phone," you say, as if that doesn't refer to at least five customers every hour. 

"Hm." 

"Alright, look." You put your coffee down to put that hand on your hip. "Whatever your problem is, take it up with your pastor and don't bring it to work." 

Steve can't keep up the cold shoulder. He turns so fast he halfway trips over his clogs, but the indignity doesn't wipe the scowl off his face. "My problem is already _at_ work, and I haven't been to church since 2005, so I'm pretty sure both options are off the table." 

"Excuse me?" Your brows practically melt into your hairline, and the chunk of lemon cookie in your other hand turns into crumbs. 

"Hi, welcome to the Tart of War!" Steve says with a bright voice to the customer who enters the store. "Feel free to check out the case." 

But she doesn't want to check out the case for long, and orders two lime meringue tarts and a handful of cookies, to be boxed up. For a dinner date with her girlfriend, she says, and Steve says that sounds like a wonderful evening. When she looks down to fish her wallet out of her purse, he glares daggers over his shoulder, and you just finish your goddamn cookie. 

The door jingles closed behind her. "Alright, explain yourself," you say, crossing your arms over your chest. "You've got a problem? Air it out, Rogers." 

"Okay. Okay, sure, if that's what you want," Steve says, crossing his arms, too. "I—hey, welcome to the Tart of War! How are you guys today?" 

This time it's a group of people, all together, but all they each want is a cookie and a coffee. Steve has them in and out in as many minutes as there are customers. 

"Speak." You point at him. 

"Bucky came home last night, and—hey, welcome! Come on in!" This time you help the customer in question, an elderly woman who insists she's heard you have something with apricot preserves in it, even if she's not sure what the pastry itself is. You assure her, as head chef, that you have not used apricot since last summer, but it takes three times telling her for it to sink in. She walks out with a cheese scone, bafflingly different from what she came looking for. 

"Bucky came home and what?" You jab a finger into the center of your palm. "Spit it out, act like you've worked in retail a _day_ in your life." 

"Bucky came home and was upset! After you took him out!" Steve finally blurts out, his pasty face coloring beet red. "So listen, I don't know what you said to him, but—" 

Your fingers and toes tingle with the memory of last night, your brain stuttering. You haven't let yourself think about it all day, but here comes Steve, shoving it right in your face. "Is that your business?" 

Steve doesn't even pause. "If it's Bucky, it's my business. What'd you say to him?" 

"Why don't you try treating James like a grown man?" you fire back. "And anyway, it's not just his business, it's mine, too. So _butt. Out._ " 

"I just—he wouldn't tell me what's wrong. Bucky tells me everything. He shut the goddamn door in my face." Steve practically crumples just thinking about it. "He only does that when—" 

"When what, some asshole shows him a bad time?" you say, not meaning to smirk. "Look, if it'll assuage your white knight heart, the problem wasn't him, it was me. We just didn't click the way we wanted to. He'll get over it." You sip the last cooled drops of your coffee. "He's gotten over plenty already." 

If Steve fully contemplates that, he doesn't tell you, because right as you finish speaking, another rush starts, this time of tourist families. There must have been overlapping tours in the area, because just as you think you see the last of the first wave, another begins. Saturdays, man. 

At least he's acting closer to his usual self when he begins his end of shift tasks around 2:30. He asks you to check him in a neutral voice, none of the attitude of the morning, and you'll count that as progress. You'll also count this whole experience as a lesson in not asking your coworker's roommate out, if that opportunity ever arises again. 

Natasha comes in at 3:15, a gap in the schedule you created because the way she and Steve interact makes you nervous. Steve swears up and down it's fine, but man, you don't know. You'd rather play it safe. 

"Hey, stud," Natasha says as she pulls her hair up to wrap a kerchief around it, pulling out that second word like taffy. "Did the war hero like your hot rod?" 

"Nat," you say as you toss her Steve's discarded apron, injecting some warning into your voice, but that never works with this girl. 

"Did you show him your bird? Did you—" She tugs the apron over her head, pops her face out and continues, "—did you get him to pet it?" 

"Natasha!" 

"What?" She shrugs as she wraps the apron strings around her waist to tie them tight at the front, something you've told her breaks the aprons so could she stop before Mr. Fury burns the place down over budgeting issues? "I'm just trying to be supportive, wow. Crucify me, why don't you." Natasha spreads her arms wide, rolling her eyes back and letting her head loll with her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth. 

"You can support me by fixing your damn apron strings and brewing us another half-pot, how about that?" You point at her waist, then at the spare coffee pot sitting awkwardly by its sibling on the counter. 

"Guess he didn't pet it," Natasha mutters as she undoes her apron to re-tie it to your standards. It takes every ounce of your control not to pull out the messiest tart in the case and splat it on the back of her pretty little head. 

By the time five rolls around, Clint has arrived for his half-shift, and you're only too happy to pass him your apron. You glance back as you head out, and try not to sigh at the way Natasha looks fit to burst from how much she needs to spill this tea to Clint. 

At least last night's events are starting to fade with the exhaustion of a hard day's work. You definitely work more than forty hours on salary, though Mr. Fury pays you a decent one, at least. You barely remember to lock the door, throw your keys in the bowl and flop face down on the couch. Soon you'll remember how to move again, just enough to cook yourself a little dinner with the collards you bought two days ago and the chicken you forgot to take out the freezer this morning. (You better get up and start defrosting it in the sink.) You'll watch another episode of Parks and Rec so Clint will crawl out of your asshole about how you've never watched every single fucking episode, and then maybe another one instead of checking Facebook and getting upset about some of your dumbass relatives and the shit they post. 

But before you can get started on any of that, _Mama Said_ by the Shirelles pipes out of your phone, and you reach for your back pocket, groaning. 

"Hell—" You're muffled by your face still being in the couch, and you turn your head to try again. "Hello?" 

"Hi, baby," your mother says. You _really_ can't groan now, as warranted as it feels. 

"Hi, Mama," you reply, pulling yourself around on the couch until you're sitting up, because your mother can somehow _tell_ when you're not sitting straight. "Something up?" 

"Why does something have to be up? I can't just call you? I can't just get in touch with my hermit son who doesn't even live in the same city as his own mother anymore? A mother can't just want to talk with her own child?" 

You pinch the bridge of your nose, massaging even as you frown into your fingers. "Mama, I'm really tired from work, I can't really 'just talk'." 

"Oh no." You can hear the trouble brewing, and you can tell you're not getting out of this one. You might as well get up and start defrosting the chicken. "You are _not_ too tired to talk to your mother." 

"No, I guess I must not be," you say, digging earbuds out of the coffee table drawer so you can take the call hands free without putting her on speaker phone. (She hates that, and she always knows.) "Talk to me, Mama." 

"I just wanna know what you been up to." With your phone slipped back into your pocket and your earbuds in place, you pull the chicken out and turn on both taps to fill a bowl with lukewarm water. "You still working for that man?" 

"Who, Mr. Fury? Yeah, Mama, I'm still at the pastry shop." You throw the plastic bag of chicken thighs into the bowl of water, and pull the collards out of the fridge onto the cutting board. From the mesh hanging bowls, you grab an onion and a head of garlic, the latter of which you put back after you peel off a couple cloves. "Remember how I said I was tired? That's why, I'm working five to five, five days a week. Five five five." 

"How many hours is that?" You don't say anything, because if you do she'll snap at you to let her figure it out, and true to form, she answers herself. "Samuel Wilson! That is sixty hours a week! He better be paying you overtime!" 

"I'm salaried," you remind her while wondering why you bother to tell her anything when your words are like so much water spilling down a drain. You called her the day you made salary, because it was also when you got your promotion to head chef. She did her best to sound happy for you, but still made sure to say that's not what you're trained in, are you really happy making cookies and cakes all day? _Tarts, mama, I make tarts. It's in the name of the shop._ "I make a better living than anyone else would pay me for this job, I'm pretty sure." Back to the sink, because you need to rinse off your knife from Thursday night's dinner prep. 

"You're pretty sure, or actually sure? Don't let that weirdo rip you off." 

Rather than delve into your mother's opinions of your boss, you change the subject. "How are things at home?" You start with the garlic, crushing each clove under the flat of your knife for easy peeling. 

"Well!" That always gets her going. "Your sister and Jody are doing real well. Sarah brought him by last week, and I cannot _believe_ the size of that boy. I don't remember you or your brother being so big at three years old." 

"To be fair, Mama, I was three years old a long, long, long time ago." You cut off the root of the onion, chop up the rest into fine squares. 

"Please, you're thirty-two. You're so young you're not even eligible to be the President of the United States." The water in the bowl for the chicken is frigid now, and you swap it out for more lukewarm water. "And I remember all of you, don't worry." 

As you cook, your mother tells you more about what various members of the family are up to. Your aunt Sheryl is moving to the West Coast to be with her boyfriend, and everyone in the family has an opinion on it. Your cousin Darlene (named for your mother) was valedictorian for her high school graduation. Your cousin Terrence is "reforming," she says, and you snort at that despite yourself, mutter _Terrence ain't shit_ and get a mini lecture on cussing in the presence of your damn mother. It's not that Terrence is a criminal, because he's not dastardly enough for that, but he's always claiming he's going to make it one of these days, that one of his ideas will work out, and in the meantime, can anyone spare him some cash (that they won't mind never getting paid back)? Your mother says you should have compassion, but doesn't expound on the why of it. 

Your brother Gideon is still studying to be a minister, you hear, but he's met someone, and he's, dare your mother say, giddy? She laughs herself sick over her own joke, then asks you why you're so mean to your mother, not laughing with her. "Hold on," your mother interrupts herself, "I'm gonna try and send you these nice pictures of her your brother sent me." 

"No, Mama, you'll end the—" _Boop boop._ Call ended. She manages to text you the photos after ten minutes of silence and much faster cooking, and this young woman named Tonya is as beautiful as your mother has claimed. You only get a few seconds to look at them, though, before your mother calls back, asking why you hung up on her. 

"So," your mother says. Uh oh. You know that _so_. You jab a butter knife into the side of one of the chicken thighs, prying it open to see how cooked it is, and brace yourself. "If Gideon can find someone..." 

"I don't go out like that." The chicken is cooked, and looks juicy, too. You make a fine meal worthy of any bachelor, these days. You plate it up with collards cooked with onions and chicken broth, grab a beer from the fridge. "I'm too busy, Mama, you said yourself I work sixty hours a week." 

"When I met your father, I was working thirty hours a week _and_ going to college." You can envision her pointing finger. "If I'd told myself I was too busy, what do you think would have happened to you?" 

"I don't know." Of course, now you can't eat because you can't get your mother off the phone, and eating during phone calls is one of her big peeves. You should have just let the chicken defrost and let your stomach rumble. 

"You wouldn't even exist, that's what. What if you're messing with the future right now and making some important person or another not exist?" 

"Oh, God, Mama, don't," you say, groaning yet again. There's never so much groaning in your life as when your mother is in it. "I really do not want kids right now." When you were younger, you were so sure you wanted a family. Now—well. You're not going to tell your mother you don't think you're even fit to have children anymore. 

"And? What if you meet the woman of your dreams, and a few years down the road you _do?_ Or," and now it's only going to get worse, "the man of your dreams, I don't know. I know there's a lot of ways for two men to raise a child these days. You could adopt, or use a surrogate mother—and you'd better make sure it's with _your_ DNA—" 

"Mama!" 

"I'm trying to be supportive!" you hear for the second time today. "You said you were, you know..." 

"Bisexual." You put your plate of steaming hot, delicious, completely off limits food down on the coffee table, and sit down hard on the couch. 

"Right, that. I just want to be understanding. You know, as your mother. I'm not like your auntie Lorraine, and you know I _do_ tell her she's ignorant!" 

"I know, Mama." You're practically salivating, looking at these greens. "I do appreciate you." 

"Well if you appreciate me, don't lie to me and tell me you don't go out like that, because that little girl you work with sent me a text message last night telling me you did!" 

You are going to cram Natasha all the way into one of the ovens. How did she even get your mother's number? You are going to stuff her in the stand mixer and put that shit on high. Whose business does she think this is? You're going to—

"Don't keep me in suspense, baby, tell me about this handsome man." 

"Mama, I really gotta go, I just finished cooking dinner. I can't let it get cold." Anything to not talk about this, especially not with your mother. 

"Don't change the subject on me. You can't do that to your mother, you know. No one can, it's illegal." 

"It—" You swallow. "It didn't work out. I don't really—" 

"It's fine, Sammy, it's fine," she immediately reassures you. "We don't have to talk about it, then." 

You sigh. "Can I go eat my dinner, then?" 

"I wish you'd come back to New York instead of holing yourself up with no friends or family down there, you know. I know you must be saving up a whole bunch, the way you live, so I know it can't be that you can't afford to move." 

"I'm saving up for in case something happens to you," you say, steepling your fingers as you rest your elbows on your knees. Another conversation you can't have. Won't have. "Mama, I really gotta go." 

"Fine. I don't want you to starve. I love you, Sam." 

"I love you, too. Bye, Mama," you reply, and end the call before she can drag out the goodbyes. 

Your food is only slightly cooled by the time you get your next episode of Parks and Rec loaded up, but it only takes three bites before you realize your appetite has faded. You sling it all into a plastic container with a long sigh, and settle into your couch to watch your show until said appetite shows up again. 

For the next six days, your life goes on just as it did before your failure of a date with Bucky. You wake up before dawn, you go to work with Steve—who isn't mad at you now, but doesn't talk about his roommate anymore, either—and you make desserts all morning long. On Tuesday mornings you work with a quiet Eastern European girl with mallgoth fashion sensibilities named Wanda, and on Sundays and Mondays the Trouble Twins are replaced by Wanda and her actual twin, Pietro. (You've mentioned to Wanda that you're happy to tweak the schedule so she might have more than just a few hours of sleep between her closing and opening shifts, but she waves you off without explanation.) 

On Wednesday and Thursday, you have off and you barely know what to do with yourself. You should probably drive up to the farm, say a proper hello to Barney and spend some quality time with Redwing. She didn't get much time with you last week, after all. 

But you don't. In fact, you waste all of Wednesday just lounging around, alternating between reading dumb clickbait articles, looking up new recipes, and window shopping for sneakers you don't need because you have no goddamn life in which to wear slick new sneakers. Adidas doesn't need your money, anyway, you remind yourself, right before clicking on a Buzzfeed link you've already seen before about surprising drunk girls with puppies. 

Thursday you wake up feeling restless, and not just because today is the one day Natasha and Wanda open the shop together. Really, you should swap Steve back to the morning shift on that one, but when you'd made this schedule Steve had said he liked having the morning with his roommate, who apparently you now can't even name in thought form. And Natasha volunteered. 

The remote to your TV goes out, leaving you with no way to pause Parks & Rec. Lord, but you need a hobby. Or well—a hobby that doesn't require an hour and change of driving to a place you're suddenly too big of a baby to go back to because you had one bad encounter. Look at yourself, Sam Wilson. Mess. 

Batteries should be somewhere on your mess of a coffee table, piled high with magazines you'll never read, all subscriptions bought by your mother and aunts. You start pushing magazines around with one hand while you try to pop the battery cover on the remote with the other. Why, in the time of smart phones, are there not rechargeable remotes? Why should you have to buy double-A's when a micro USB fixes everything else? 

A particularly tall pile of magazines starts to slip, spills its entirety onto the carpet in an unstoppable torrent of glossy pages. It uncovers the package of batteries, at least, but you've also unearthed something else, not quite as nice or big as the rest of the stack. 

Bucky's zine. 

You finish putting batteries in just so you can pause Amy Poehler mid-sentence, then put the zine in front of you on the coffee table. Contemplating its neon green cover that simply says BUCKYZINE #14 in black marker, the ink a little shiny like he wrote it by hand. 

You should get rid of it. You should give it to Steve, actually, and let him deal with it, James—not Bucky, you won't call him that again—being his friend and all. Right now you should put it in the car so you won't forget it, right on the passenger seat where you'll see it. You know, right where James himself sat. 

Instead you lay back on the couch, feet up and head against an armrest as your fingertips glide over its open pages. There's not very many, and the one coloring page—which consists of a single lumpy shape of an arm—is hilariously small. 

When James gave this to you, you called it art, and you meant it. It's pain, bared ugly and stark, set against a background of smiling old dogs and a hell of a lot of eggs that makes it like publishing an uncomfortable smile. Veterans are supposed to be heroes, but what tends to come home is a mess of trauma, missing pieces, and a feeling of being used, which doesn't make for much of a heroic narrative. 

There's just something else now, too, when you turn the pages, read another comic that ends with stick figure James blasting off again. Or another self-portrait that picks out his features until they're ugly. Or the pigeon waiting to be eaten, blasé about its fate and its glaring injury. 

Maybe you don't have to be afraid. If anyone might understand the way your brain twists in on itself when you so much as consider emotional connection, it's James. It's _Bucky._

You're going to talk to him the next time you see him. Of course, that depends on whether he ever bothers to come back to the store, and you've already resigned yourself to the fact that he probably never will. But if he does, well—you're going to be ready. You'll tell him the truth of Friday night. You'll tell him you're sorry for shutting him out. You'll tell him—no, ask him. You'll ask for another chance. You'll risk it. 

It doesn't stop the nightmares, naturally, your entire body locked into a feeling of helplessness while your brain remembers the smell of burning fuel and flesh. But you peel yourself out of your damp bed the next morning, and you tell yourself it's not real until it almost makes you late. 

All this hope and determination seeps into your attitude at work Friday morning, and even Steve notices it. "You're extra loud this morning," he says, rapidly blinking as he sticks a pinky in his ear, like a goddamn cartoon. 

"I'm not loud, I'm joyful," you correct him, plopping meringue into a piping bag to get it on the baking sheet. 

"Don't tell me you, uh, met someone." He doesn't say _else_ , at least. 

"Nah, no. Nothing like that." Your piping looks extra beautiful today, you think, your hand extra steady. 

"So you're just feeling perky, huh?" 

"As perky as these meringue peaks," you say, singing the last two words. "Don't you ever take time to reevaluate your life, Rogers, and come out on top?" 

"I mean, probably." He dunks a hand towel into the red sanitizer bucket with his bare hands, squeezes it until it's just damp. "You gonna share with the class, or what?" 

"Well, that depends on who comes in today," you say, which is more than you probably should have said, but like, if it sets helpful machinations in motion, so to speak, then you're not bothered. "Listen, why don't you wipe down that counter instead of getting nosy?" 

The morning proceeds smoothly, a steady stream of customers, coffee, and easy chatter. You catch a glimpse of Steve texting under the counter, and by the rules you should say something, but you keep your mouth shut. Something tells you it's for your own good. 

Around a quarter to three, Steve heads into the back to start his end of shift tasks, leaving you with an empty store and no one to talk to. 

Which means there's no harm in doing a little light reading. Bucky's zine has been tucked above the register since you got in, and now you pull it out for another read. "Wish I had some crayons," you mutter as you reach the so-called coloring page. It's not like there's a lot to read—but the shit is just so damn _arresting_ , especially as you mull over what you plan to say if you see him, for the millionth time today. 

The door jingles. "Welcome to the Tart of War," you say before you look up, closing the zine. "Check out the—" 

You freeze, and so does James. Bucky. Whatever. 

He's staring at his zine, as if he forgot he gave it to you or something. He won't look at you, precisely, but he looks panicky about this whole encounter. 

"Hey, uh—listen, man, I—" 

A real customer comes in next, and Bucky stumps off to the chair you never put away, since it's actually turned out to be pretty useful. You help the man who came in pick out a sampler of tarts, and sell him a brownie for the road, too. He leaves, and you're alone with Bucky again. 

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry about last week," you say, taking that shit straight to the point before another interruption comes in. 

"Oh." Bucky keeps his eyes trained on the handle of his cane. No other response. 

"I, uh..." This isn't how you really envisioned this going. You clear your throat, start again. "It didn't really—I didn't—" Another throat clearing as your face heats. "I shut you out, and it didn't have to be like that." 

"Yeah." This time Bucky just adjusts his grip on the cane, glances out the window. 

"I could, uh." At this point you just have to finish your internal script for your own sake. "We could try again?" 

"Uh..." He scratches at his stubble, eyes darting anywhere but you. 

"I mean, not like tonight or anything. Like, uh, whenever works for you." 

"Steve!" Bucky looks past you, his eyes lighting up with visible relief. And Steve has indeed come out of the back, backpack on and apron off. 

Steve offers you his folded apron, even as he looks at the chasm between you and Bucky. "I hope I wasn't interrupting anything," he says, because maybe he wasn't listening from back there and he thinks now's the time to tease you. 

"No," you say, leaning against the counter with a sigh. "No, not at all, Steve. You ready to go?" 

"If you say I am," he says, gesturing to the dividing curtain. So you put your head behind it, sweep your eyes over his workspace. Everything neat and clean for tomorrow morning, so Nat and Clint don't have to mess with it. 

"Yeah, get out of here." You try to laugh, but all that comes out is a snort. "Go have fun." 

Steve takes another look at each of you, and you see the light go off behind those baby blues: This is not the romantic reunion he thought it was. If anything, it's a miniature disaster. He purses his lips as you take his apron, and he heads over to Bucky, mumbles something while Bucky pulls himself to his feet. They leave without so much as a look thrown over a shoulder. 

Natasha comes in, right on time, fifteen minutes later. "You look like you're having some kind of day," she remarks as she ties on her apron. She holds her apron strings out in front of her waist—then seems to think better of it, tying them comfortably at the small of her back. 

"That's one way of putting it," you mutter. 

"I heard War Hero came in today. I'm guessing that's what all this is about, huh?" She encompasses your whole face with one hand, the other already working on scooping her hair up and back so she can put on her kerchief. 

"Heard how?" You don't even deny it, just run straight to step two. 

"Steve texted me." 

"Steve?" You stand up straight for that bit of information. " _Steve_ texted you?" 

"What? We're friends," she says with a shrug. "I don't know why you think we're not." 

"Friends—oh, you mean like how you're friends with my mother?" you scoff. 

"I said I was sorry about that!" Natasha throws her hands up as she finishes off the knot behind her head. "Besides, you don't talk to your mother enough, judging by your text and call history." 

"My text and—!" 

She shrugs again, although she has the decency to look contrite. "I was bored at the time, alright? And you seemed pretty happy about going on a date, and you don't seem to have any friends, so—" 

"Can't you mind your own damn business? Jesus, girl!" She's got you cut and dry, but that doesn't mean she has to tell you about it and hurt your feelings. 

Natasha rolls her lips between her teeth, lacing her fingers behind her neck as she frowns hard. "I'm sorry, okay? I—I know I have bad habits." 

"Tuh." No, Sam, come on, be nice to your employee. "Alright. Just work on it, okay?" 

"Yeah." She blinks fast as she rolls her lips again. "I'm gonna check on something in the back." 

"Something in the—?" But she's already gone. 

When she comes back out a few minutes later, her face is composed again, and as if to prove how normal she's feeling, she hits you square in the ass with the side of her foot. Then she takes the sanitizer towel and wipes down the entire store. 

Anyway, Natasha isn't totally correct about you. Not about your friendships, anyway. Your phone buzzes as you pass Clint your apron, and the second you see the notification you grin. This motherfucker. You park yourself right outside the store to text back. 

_You still live in DC?_

_**Nah. I had enough of earth, I live on Mars now  
Don't tell me you just got into town or something** _

_Just for a lil while but I've got time for at least one friend_

_**Friend who? This is your husband, Rhodes! Make time for me before I do it for you** _

_Haha shut the fuck up_  
_You wanna catch dinner somewhere tonight? I'll treat  
Idk if you're off work yet or free at all_

__**You know my busy social life and all...**  
**Listen if you buy the groceries I'll cook  
Dinner at chez Wilson**

_That sounds like you really are my wife  
But nah that sounds good, I could use some quiet time_

_**I said husband** _

_You have a dish in mind or should I buy whatever?  
Husband, wife, same thing_

__**I want to hear you say that to Tony**  
**find out what happens**  
**Let me send you a list real quick**

_Tony's not gonna do anything, I'm not worried about him_

_**You still eat pork, right?** _  
_**and I worry about Tony all the time. I worry about you being around Tony all the time** _

_Why don't you just send me that list and your current address and worry about yourself  
And I'll see you in like an hour at your place_

_**Yeah alright** _

The shopping list you send Rhodey is one for pork chops with potatoes, mushrooms and carrots, a meal you feel is a pretty adequate "welcome back" for a man who rarely stops traveling. You send him your street address to put into his GPS, and finally head for your car. 

At least something good is coming of this day. 

By the time you hear Rhodey's truck pull into your driveway, you've washed up, changed into something more presentable than your gross work clothes, and you've even got a pair of six packs of craft beer sitting in the fridge. You're not entirely sure what the beer tastes like, but the packaging sure sold it. 

"Sir, you gotta exit my driveway, I don't know you and I need you to leave," you say as you open the front door, grinning so hard your head might bust in half. Rhodey is just shutting his car door, and as he catches sight of you, he starts mugging just as hard. 

"Listen, I was promised dinner if I came to this exact location," Rhodey says, reaching into the back seat to pull out doubled plastic bags full of food, "so I don't know about all that. You've gotta take it up with the guy who told me to come here. I think his name's, uh, Wilson?" 

You can't keep up the banter, though, too overcome with relief at seeing your old friend. Rhodey throws the bags back into the car just in time for you to skip any hand interaction, right to putting your arms around him and squeezing tight. He hugs you right back, calls you a big baby without an ounce of ill intent, lets you stay there for a minute while you really process this. 

"Alright, alright," you say, pulling back and holding your hand out for grocery bags. "Let's get this shit inside so we can eat." 

It's good to talk about nothing with someone who knows everything, for once. You and Rhodey unload the grocery bags in the kitchen, and he takes a seat in the corner while you start your prep work. _How's the job at the pastry spot? You still doing that falconry stuff? You watched Orange is the New Black? Nah, me neither._ You ask him about what he's been up to on the road, working as a motivational speaker and all—corny bastard—and that gets him talking for a while, giving you more focus on browning the chops just right. 

"The real question is," Rhodey says as he brings his plate of food to the table in the den, only just wiped clear of all the mail and other bullshit you let pile up, "do you still have no goddamn friends in this town? Like, what do you do after work?" 

"Cook myself a nice meal, pass out with the TV on," you say, putting your plate down as well. "Like so many other working adults." 

"You don't ever go to the bar with your coworkers, even? Nothing at all?" Rhodey's voice follows you back into the kitchen as you jog back to get glasses for the beer. 

"I can't even express to you the ungodly hour I get out of bed, man." The glasses clink as you grab them. "There's no bar for me." 

"Not even on your days off, huh?" Rhodey hisses in sympathy, accepting the glass so he can pour in the beer can he's already opened. "You lonely motherfucker." 

"I'm not alone if Netflix is on," you say with half a smile as you take your seat. 

"So definitely no romance, then." Rhodey takes a first sip of his beer, looking at you over the rim of his glass. 

"Are you gonna eat, or are you gonna continue to disrespect me under my own roof?" you ask, pointing at Rhodey's plate with your steak knife before starting to cut one of your pork chops. 

"Well, I'm gonna tell you this is a nice beer you chose," Rhodey says with a snort. "And then I'm gonna tell you I'm just being your friend." He cuts a square of pork, too. "And this is some _damn_ finely cooked meat, Wilson." 

"Compliment sandwich, huh?" That makes you chuckle, at least. "Fine. The price is paid. What do you wanna know?" 

"Exactly what I already asked. You been seeing anyone?" Rhodey takes an exceptionally large bite of pork chop, as if it make it clear he's not going to be doing the talking on this one. 

"I mean, not really." The carrots turned out good. Tender, a little caramelized, contrasting the mushrooms. You chew them thoughtfully, unsure just how to tell Rhodey about your grand failure with Bucky. "Sort of?" 

"Don't think about how to tell me. Just tell me." Rhodey points at you with his fork before spearing a potato chunk with it. You'd call him a mind reader if you didn't already know he's just too familiar with the way you operate. 

So you do. You tell him the whole wretched story, from your awkward date invitation—which Bucky didn't even believe was a date, you don't think—to your breakdown in the countryside. Or well, you leave out bits like Bucky being rusty but eager at kissing, and the way the spirit of Frank Ocean (can it be a spirit if he's not dead?) seemed to highlight the most awkward moments. Those parts are on a need-to-know basis, and you're the only one who needs to know. 

"That's it?" 

No, of course that's not it. You pour both of you a second beer while you tell him how Bucky's roommate—you know, your coworker you see the most, it's fine—went off on you on Bucky's behalf, because Bucky came home upset, and rightfully so. And you bemoan your bad luck while you tell him how Bucky came in today and acted like he wished you weren't there. The _uh_ s and the _oh_ s—no, not even that, because they weren't even plural. Bucky couldn't even look at you. That ship hasn't just sailed, it's been lost at sea, an already-rotting wreck at the bottom of the ocean. 

"I just don't understand why I can't get my shit together, you know?" you sigh, turning your fork from side to side as if you really need to inspect this one potato. "Like, if I could meet someone and _not_ have a mental breakdown and subsequent panic attack over shit that's not even their fault, that would be nice." 

"Therapy would probably help," Rhodey says, as if this is brand new information. 

"Yeah, right." You snort into your beer glass, rolling your eyes. "I'll get right on that, when I have cash to blow and time to waste." 

"Don't you bullshit your commanding officer, Wilson." 

"Commanding officer, ha! You're a motivational speaker, and I'm a pastry chef," you laugh. "Those days are gone for both of us." 

"Oh, like you don't stand at ease in the bakery when you don't have shit to do," Rhodey shoots back. 

"No, because in a bakery there's _always_ shit to do," you counter. "Anyway, what's a therapist gonna tell me I don't already know? I know whose funeral I went to. I know I fucked up my own paperwork. I picked up my own mess and made a new life. There, therapized my own damn self. Done." 

"Therapized isn't a word." Rhodey seems almost too calm, suddenly. 

"I don't need therapy now, Rhodey. I needed it _then_ and the VA left me for dust." You poke your finger into the tabletop hard enough to make your knuckles sore. "I made my own way." 

"So you're telling me the nightmares are gone? You're telling me you didn't really have a panic attack over trying to go on a date with another vet?" His voice is gentle, his utensils flat on the table. 

It makes you go quiet. He knows so much. 

"Even to this day, Sam, I wish you'd called me," Rhodey says, reaching over the table to put his hand over yours. "I would have helped you with the paperwork. With all of it. I didn't know you were going it alone on that." 

"I didn't want to bother you," you mumble for the fifth or sixth time in the course of your friendship with James Rhodes. "My mother tried to help me, and you weren't in New York." 

"I came to Riley's funeral, didn't I?" 

And he did. He stood to your left with your mother to your right, a strong hand on your shoulder while your mother's frailer one twined your fingers. The priest read aloud under a sun that dared to shine on Riley's newly-carved headstone, and Rhodey's hand squeezed. 

Rhodey sighs. "I didn't come here to make you feel bad, Sam. I just wanted to catch up, see how things were. I don't—I don't want to lecture you." 

_Then don't,_ you almost say, but you know better. "I know, man. I know." 

"Look, I'll say this, and then we don't have to talk about this anymore, if you don't want to." Rhodey takes another pull at his beer, and puts it down with the barest tap. "All that other shit aside, it sounds like this dude—Bucky?" You nod, and Rhodey continues. "It sounds like this Bucky has mental issues, too. Maybe he wasn't trying to ignore you. This is my outsider perspective, anyway." 

"How do you figure?" You scrape up the last pieces of mushroom and carrot to push them onto your fork with your knife. 

"Oh, I don't fucking know, just intuition or some shit. Take it or leave it." Rhodey finishes off his beer, and starts chuckling. "You got dessert, Wilson?" 

You spend the rest of the evening being made fun of for having expired ice cream in your freezer, telling Air Force stories you both already know, and watching Say Yes to the Dress with even more beer in you, which makes for a pretty raucous viewing. Rhodey is flat out drunk by midnight, and so are you with both six packs finished, so you throw every pillow and blanket in your hall closet at him until you manage to hit him square in the face. All he ends up using is a single pillow and a couple sheets, and then he's out, still dressed in chinos and his undershirt. You wake him just long enough to remind him he's gonna hate wearing pants in the morning, then trundle off to your bedroom to barely manage getting your own pants off. 

When the nightmares hit, Rhodey is there, sober and whispering. 

Rhodey texts you just before the shop opens the next morning, apologizing for having to leave before you got back. You reply that he should just swing by the damn shop, then, but he says he's already on the road, and that's just kind of that. _Hope you at least locked my damn door,_ you text, but he doesn't say anything else, and you tell yourself it's because he's got to keep both hands on the wheel. 

Your boring life goes on, early mornings and lonely afternoons and all. The weekend is hectic, just as it always is. You sublimate Rhodey's advice, because there's no point in considering Bucky's brain problems when there's _definitely_ no chance of his return after Friday's performance. 

The nightmares skip the weekend, at least. You just wake up three or four times a night, is all. 

Monday comes, soothing only in its peacefulness in comparison to the weekend. Your personal Friday isn't until tomorrow. Steve plays fast-paced swing music after nine o'clock, and wastes an inordinate amount of time dancing across the floor while he's supposed to be Windexing every glass surface in sight. He wheezes after five minutes, and you tell him it serves him right, but you still tell him to sit down and take medication if he needs to. If nothing else, his moves were pretty good. 

"Hey, so," Steve says, once the late morning rush is over, "I've got something for you, if you want it." He leans against the pastry case in a pose that's too calculated to be casual, his fingers drumming nervously against his thigh. 

"Well, I can't really know if I want it if I don't know what it is, Steve," you say, pouring the tip jar out onto the back counter to change out the coins for bills while there's time to breathe. 

"Yeah, but I can't really show it to you unless you want it." The door jingles, and Steve yanks himself over to the register with a classic customer service smile. "Hi, welcome to the Tart of War!" 

While you count out coins and consider just what Steve's trying to say, the customer who comes in gives Steve a rousing lecture on the flippancy of the name of the shop. Steve handles it with grace, especially considering how baseless the complaint is, and by the time you've poured a heavy handful of coins into the register to pull out a five and some singles, Steve is getting ready to hip-check you to one side so he can ring up this person for three tarts and a cookie. 

"Can you at least tell me what kind of _thing_ it is?" you ask as you put the tip jar back into place. Steve drops in the six quarters that last customer left on the counter as a tip, and you sigh. That could have been change, too. 

"Reading material?" Steve says, biting his lip like he hopes that's enough information for you. 

"Are you offering me like, erotic fanfiction you wrote, Rogers? Because, uh..." 

"Wh—no. No! No no no, no." He waves his hands in frantic arcs in front of his face, shaking his head. "Can you just say you want it so I can give it to you?" 

"Fine," you scoff. "I want whatever weird shit it is you're trying to push on me." 

Steve darts behind the partition, beaming as he goes. You can hear a few stray coughs here and there, and your ears prick for more, but it doesn't seem like anything too dangerous. 

When he reappears, there's something bright in his hand. Something rectangular, and neon pink. Something that says BUCKYZINE #15 on the front. 

Oh, Jesus. 

"I changed my mind," you say, heading for the swinging doors set into the side of the counter. 

"Sam, come on, it's not what you think." Steve grabs you by the elbow, tugging at it. "I really think you need to see it." 

"Why? Why do I need to see it? You saw what happened the last time he came in here, I already know what he thinks of me." You gesture at the window, where Bucky's chair— _the_ chair, it doesn't belong to him, goddammit—still sits. "Let it go, Steve, stop trying to play matchmaker." 

Steve bites his lip again, really drags his teeth over it. "That's exactly why I think you need to look at this one. He made it earlier than usual, too." 

"Does he know you brought this one to me?" you ask, and Steve colors a bright pink. 

"Well, I—" 

"Just let me see the goddamn thing." You hold your hand out like a teacher demanding spat-out gum, and Steve places the zine there with about as much guilt. 

Almost immediately after, a family enters the store, and Steve jumps right to the fore so you can read the zine. You step through the curtain anyway, the better to muffle the family's loud chatter. 

For the most part, it's just like the last one. Bucky's gallows humor is painted all over it, and so is his predilection for the ugly. There's a page where optimistic words flow from the mouth of (probably?) his therapist into one side of his head, and out a poorly-drawn exit wound on the other side. Another page features a full body drawing, marked as Bucky by the sticks for hair and the cane, with price tags attached to various body parts. His missing arm, delineated with a dashed line, is only outpriced by his head. 

You think you've found why Steve wants you to see this particular zine when you flip to the next page. Dead center is a giant Bucky head, surrounded by what might be much smaller renditions of _your_ head. Each Sam head—if that's what they are—seems relaxed, smiling, and is equipped with a speech bubble, saying things like "What's up?" and "Wanna go out?" and "I like you!" It brings heat to your cheeks just looking at it. The Bucky head's eyes are filled in with static, and his mouth, hanging open, is full of the same. 

Why the hell would Steve want you to see this? You can't even tell the exact meaning, but as far as you're concerned it just confirms what you already knew: Bucky doesn't want to hear from you, Bucky doesn't want to talk to you. 

You turn the page. 

At first it just seems like a giant speech bubble taking up a whole page, filled right up to the edge with I LIKE YOU TOO over and over again, in all caps and varying sizes. Then you notice two little legs at the bottom, and look up to find one little arm holding a cane, and a head that looks like a tick about to be popped off, with something tied around its skinny neck. The opposite page is just another tiny Sam head, floating alone in white space with a neutral face. 

Jesus. Jesus. Ohh, Jesus. 

One more page left. You turn it. 

And this one is a full two-page spread. 

It's you, it could only be you. Dark gray skin, lumpen arms meant to be muscled, a tight shirt. Hands that pull at a feather-filled slit in your chest, that pull with each borderless panel until the slit becomes a chasm. Hands that fall away as your body splits in two. A body that falls away, too, as the feathers become a bird. 

A bird that flies away, finally free. 

It's you. 

"Sam?" Steve pops his head behind the curtain, gets some of that pink back when you startle at the sound of his voice. "Sorry, uh, just—there's a line—" 

Of course. Noon isn't far off, and the afternoon rush always begins with those workers who start lunch a little too early. "I'm on it," you say, putting the zine down on the back office desk. You reach back to tighten your apron, and plunge back through the curtain into the retail fray. 

On your break you look at those three pages again, almost forgetting to actually heat up your leftovers and eat them. Bucky wants to talk to you. Bucky wants to tell you he likes you. Bucky likes you, _too_. 

Bucky understands you. That's what you know when you look at that last spread. You can't even articulate why, when you ask yourself, but you touch your fingers to it and you _know_. 

It has to be worth it to try to talk to him one more time. You just have to see him again. 

Of course, the rest of the day is unusually busy for a Monday, leaving you no time to even work up the courage to ask Steve to help you facilitate this. It shouldn't even require courage—Steve's the one who showed you the new zine in the first place. But Steve leaves at three, and it's his Friday, too, which means you won't see him again until Friday. And god, you're not at a point where you're going to text him off the clock to help arrange a meeting between you and his roommate. Nope, nah, no, nuh-uh. 

You just have to pray Steve will work it out. And you just have to work on exactly what you'll say this time. 

That's exactly what you're doing, in fact, when you get a series of rapidfire texts from Clint, of all people, at seven or so on Thursday night. Your phone doesn't even pause between buzzes. 

_can you come to the shop asap? steve has to go_  
_or rather i said he should go because his asthma is acting up real bad_  
_he asked me to not call an ambulance_  
_so i texted nat to come and take him home_  
_she should be here soon_

You frown as you reply. 

_**Yeah, I can be there soon  
Is Steve ok? What's he doing?** _

_laying out flat in the kitchen with some aprons under his head_  
_hes trying to tell me hes ok but i can hear him breathing from the other side of the curtain  
nat said shes close so he should probably be gone by the time you get here_

**Ok give me ten minutes to get dressed and I'll be there  
** **Tell Steve I said to stop pushing himself so damn hard  
And that if he's not good by 4am tomorrow to tell me so I can call in Wanda**

_yes sir you got it sir_

_**Alright Barton relax with the smart mouth** _

It's not like you have to look too pretty to close up the shop on a Thursday night, especially with only two hours of business to go by the time you get there. You refresh your deodorant, throw on jeans and sneakers since you won't be baking, and throw yourself behind Lucinda's wheel. 

As Clint promised, Steve is gone by the time you get to the store. Clint tells you with a little more detail about what started it: A customer smelling like cigarette smoke, leaning in too close to get a better view of something on a cake stand, and suddenly Steve coughed between every other word, and then he couldn't even do that, gasping while Clint physically pulled him away from the front counter. The customer was at least apologetic, but apologies didn't really get Steve's inhaler out of his backpack any faster. 

The rest of the night is quiet. At nine, you turn the sign on the door around to read CLOSED, and once Clint is done sweeping and mopping, you send him straight home with his favorite tart, telling him he's done enough for today and deserves a little extra rest. The drawer is counted, the drop is in the safe, and now all that's left is to wipe surfaces, wrap up the contents of the pastry case, and take out the garbage. You can do that by yourself. 

If you're going to be by yourself in a locked store, though, you're going to need a soundtrack. You've already got a playlist for that, obviously; you swap out the store's Samsung for your own device, and you turn up the volume until it's just where the upstairs neighbors won't complain to Mr. Fury about the noise. _My fingertips, and my lips, they burn from the cigarette..._

You set about your closing tasks, singing along as you pull and tear sheets of plastic wrap for each white plate in the case, working fast to make tomorrow morning hurt less. Soggy-bottomed tarts and cookies about to go stale go into the garbage, and then you tie off your two big garbage bags to haul outside. 

You unlock the door to push it open, and freeze mid-swing when you see who's standing outside, leaning heavily on his cane. 

Bucky looks just as startled to see you, and he takes a few little steps back, glaring at his fingers wrapped around the cane handle. "Is Steve almost done?" 

"Steve left hours ago," you say, frowning. "He didn't tell you?" 

"Tell me?" Bucky looks up, looking genuinely confused. He leans up against the side of the building and rests his cane there, too, pulling out his phone and turning the screen on. The fact that he seems to scroll even just the once through his notifications tells you he hasn't looked at his phone in a long time, and mortification colors his face. "Jesus. Well, I'm a real piece of shit." 

"Listen, why don't you sit inside while I take this where it belongs?" you say, gesturing at the door with your free hand. 

"I should probably just go," he mutters, but the way he's swaying tells you how tired his legs are. 

"Nah, man, just go sit. You're tired. Sit and then you can go home." This time your gesturing is more insistent, and Bucky shuffles inside with a resigned look. 

When you come back inside, Bucky looks half-deflated in that one chair. Your playlist is still going, and you trot over to the aux to turn it down some. _And I believe you when you say you've lost all faith, but you must believe in something, something..._

As soon as he spots you, Bucky scrambles to sit up, and then he's pushing on his cane to get himself up. "Yeah, that's enough sitting, I gotta get home and make sure Steve didn't start dying again or something," he rambles, even as he practically creaks in standing up. 

"Bucky," you say, only loud enough to make him stop. He's pointed at the door, but he looks over his shoulder, eyes big and shiny. You step out from behind the counter. "Can we talk?" 

Bucky glances at the door, then returns his gaze to you. "I guess." He doesn't move, though, like maybe he doesn't expect this to go far. 

It's so much harder to speak up when Bucky looks that unenthused. You clear your throat twice. 

"Steve showed me your new zine." 

"He did what?" If Bucky's eyes were big before, they're huge now, wide and lidless in shock. He hurries back to the chair just in time to collapse on it, but he doesn't stop staring at you. 

"Look," you say, holding your hands up. "I asked him if he asked you if it was okay, and he got all weird about it. So I just—I looked at it." 

"Jesus Christ," he mutters, rocking back and forth from the hip, rolling the rubber foot of his cane. "Jesus fucking Christ. I'm gonna beat him with this cane until he gets another asthma attack. _My_ best friend! Jesus _Christ_." 

This isn't going how you'd hoped this time, either. You'd pretty stupidly imagined that Bucky would be relieved you got his secret message, that whatever was corking up all those words he'd written inside a bloated stick figure's body would disappear, let the words come streaming out for you to hear and reciprocate. 

For a moment, there's only the music over the sound of your own swallowing. _Wise man closed his mouth, madman closed his fist..._

"Bucky," you say again. "I'm—I'm sorry for how it went, out in the fields. I just thought—" You swallow again. "I didn't wanna inflict my mess on you." 

"You didn't wanna—?" Bucky's eyebrows shoot up, the corners of his mouth curling up right before he bursts out laughing. Before you can get offended, he says, "I'm the mess! _I'm_ the fucking mess! I thought you were opting the fuck out!" 

Now you're laughing, too, shaking your head right before you put a hand to your forehead. "Not even close." 

_Maybe hearts were made to pump blood, maybe lungs were made for flood..._

You squat in front of Bucky, and offer your hand. "Can we try this again?" 

Bucky inhales through his nose, exhales through his mouth, just a little shaky. "You mean without me shutting down and forgetting how to answer basic questions?" he says with a crooked little smile. 

"Yeah, and without me shutting down, either," you say, returning it. "No assumptions. No bullshit." 

_Strong man don't exist, no undying man exists..._

Bucky rests his cane against his thigh to take your hand. It's warm. 

_Weak man don't exist, no, just flesh and blood exist..._

You rise, only to lean back over Bucky, his hand still holding yours. Your lips brush, and then it's Bucky who kisses first. 

Whatever he'd forgotten about kissing the last time you tried, it seems to come rushing back with every moment he kisses you. He lets go of your hand just to put his on your shoulder, then slides it up to the back of your neck, presses there. The inside of his mouth is hot, and when he nips at your lower lip there's a moment of shock that lights up the trail of nerves that end at the tip of your dick. 

You break away, breathless. "That's not the Bucky I met in the countryside," you whisper, and Bucky all but _cackles_. 

"You're just meeting real Bucky, is all, like under all the bad shit," he says, not letting go of your neck. "Don't tell me you don't like it." 

"I never said any of that," you snort, before descending into another kiss. 

It's the teenagers slapping their hands against the glass and hooting that reminds you Bucky's chair is still in the window, even if the street is basically dead. Bucky's cane falls over as he grabs for it, and you nearly trip trying to pick it up for him. 

"You wanna go somewhere else?" you say as you hand him back his cane, even as you wave at the shithead teenagers so they might get bored and go away. 

"Anywhere you got," Bucky answers, before you're even done asking the question. 

By the time you've grabbed your bag out the back, the teenagers have moved on, and you hold the door open for Bucky. He waits just behind you as you lock up, and then you're so grateful you found good parking today while you lead him the short distance to your car. 

When you get back to your house, you're worried the mood has been broken by the car ride, but when you help Bucky out of the car he touches your face, and then you're making out up against Lucinda, right where your neighbors might see if they popped their nosy little heads out a window. 

The difference between kissing Bucky sitting down and pressing him against the passenger side door is that before, you couldn't put your arms around Bucky. Before, his chest wasn't pushed against yours, his belly, soft and strong at the same time. Before, you couldn't feel how hard he was. It takes everything in you to not slide your hand along the front of his sweats, just to feel the outline. 

"Maybe inside," you breathe when Bucky runs out of air, and you press your forehead to his while he laughs. 

"You mean the house, right?" 

"Yeah, the house." You consider Bucky's cane, the pain in his joints. "Bucky, can I carry you?" 

"What?" He doesn't look offended, just taken off guard, which is a good start. 

"I just—" You lick your lips. "Into the house, that's all." 

Bucky rolls his lips in, then back out into a pout that makes you want to kiss him again. "Yeah," he says with quick little nods. "Yeah, alright." 

You slide your hands under the soft curves of his ass, heft Bucky up along the side of your car so he can rebalance himself before you start walking. He wraps his legs around your waist, and it makes your dick ache with its promise of things to come. Then he throws his arm around your shoulder, his cane hanging down, and you about-face to head into the house. 

His cane bangs against your ass with every step, and Bucky keeps murmuring apologies into the crook of your neck, his breath hot against your skin. It only pushes you up the driveway faster, and you only put him halfway down to fumble your keys against the lock of the front door. 

You make it to the bedroom, and you almost throw Bucky onto your mattress. It's what you'd do if he were someone else, someone less riddled with pain and trick joints. Instead you sit on the bed still holding Bucky, his legs folding up to either side of your hips and his cane falling away, and as soon as he touches down he grinds against you. You push your face into the cotton of his faded T-shirt to moan. 

It's Bucky who pushes you down, propping himself up on his one elbow so you can go back to kissing while his hips rock against yours. You roll right back against him, heels popping off the floor, your hands dragging down his back, past his waist, right onto his ass to push him harder against you, fingers digging in. 

"Bucky," you murmur against his lips, "Bucky, hold up." 

"Hold up what? You're the one grabbing my ass," Bucky hisses back, but he holds still, breathing hard through his nose. 

"I just wanna check with you, make sure this isn't, like, too fast for you." 

That makes Bucky sit up, ass lined up with your cock, and you have to bite your lip to control yourself. You're the one who called this meeting. 

"Sam," he says, running his one hand through his hair to push it behind one ear, "I haven't had sex since Obama's first turn in office. I haven't kissed anyone, haven't touched anyone or been touched. If waiting literal years is fast, I'd hate to see how you handle the rest of your life." He cracks this rakish grin, though, and you knead his hips while you laugh at yourself. 

"Look, I just had to be a gentleman about it, alright? You gotta ask all the right questions before you get a man's sweats off." 

Bucky leans down, his hair spilling from behind his ear until it tickles your cheek. "So get 'em off," he says, low and throaty. You groan, biting the tip of your tongue. 

You roll over, lay Bucky out on your bed with his hair spread across your pillows. His lips are so red and shiny, his eyelids so heavy over dark pupils, that you have to stop to kiss him again. You slip your hand just under the waistband of his sweats, fingers sliding over boxers, delicate up along the cotton-covered underside of his cock. Bucky whines against you, arching into your hand, and you give him most of what he wants, palming him aggressively. 

"Come the fuck on," Bucky growls, but his eyes are squeezed shut, his chest heaving, and there's no bite to it. 

"Come on and what?" you say, grinning while you pull your hand back. 

"You know what, don't do that, Sam, please," he says, grabbing at your forearm. Begging. 

"I guess I could have a charitable spirit," you say. "I guess I could do something nice for a local vet." 

"You guess? Or you will?" 

Your answer is to pull at the waistband of his boxers, letting your fingers crawl inside. And—god. You haven't touched a cock in so long. Your eyelids actually flutter as you close your hand around Bucky's dick, the tip already wet and flowing with precum that smears your palm. Bucky pushes his hand against his face, his moans high-pitched and weak. His cock is silky, burning hot, pulsing against your touch. 

So Bucky's lips part in sex-drunk surprise when you let go of it to nudge his knees apart, so you can climb between them. You push his shirt up his stomach, kiss a trail down its soft, scar-riddled expanse despite Bucky's yelping, and then you pull down his sweats with two hands. 

His dick pops free to lie flat against the fat of his lower belly, and Bucky watches you while you pull his sweats off all the way, snickers softly while you wrestle with the shoes and socks you forgot about. 

Bucky stops laughing, though, when you press a lingering kiss to the head of his dick. You look up at him through your lashes, and he reaches to touch your face. 

"Sam," he says. 

"Yeah?" 

"You're still dressed, you know." 

You glance back at yourself. "Even still got my damn shoes on," you mutter. 

"Take it off." 

"'It' what?" you ask, walking two fingers up Bucky's cock. He shivers. 

"A-all of it," he says, nearly whispering. 

You can only tease a man so much. Your shoes get toed off, still tied, with hard _thunk_ s against the wall. You tear your shirt off, undo your jeans in such a violent motion you almost think you've busted the zipper, and push them down to take your socks with them. 

When you get ready to take off your briefs, though, thumbs hooked under the elastic, Bucky sits up, propped up on a straightened arm. "Let me," he says, and you let your hands dangle by your hips while he situates himself, scooting his ass back so he can sit up. Your breath hitches when he puts his mouth to the orange cotton, his hand gripping the back of your thigh for leverage, and you whimper when his teeth snag just the tiniest bit of fabric to pull it away from your cock. 

Bucky pulls your underwear down in fits and starts, and you knee-walk out of them when he gets them to your knees. No sooner are they off your heel than Bucky puts his lips around the tip of your dick, and when you cry out, he swallows it practically whole, teeth scraping the top while the head pushes against the back of his throat. His mouth is so wet and hot, and even if he can't keep up perfect suction—he can't, he gets out of breath—it doesn't fucking matter because it's enough that your cock is in his mouth, enough that he cups your ass so he can really swallow around you. You tangle your hand in his hair as his head bobs, the fingers of your other hand resting on your bottom teeth like that might stop the noises that ride out on shuddering breaths. 

"Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, s-stop, wait—" you whimper, your orgasm lurking just behind your eyes, you can fucking feel it. He pauses, the head of your dick just against his suck-swollen lower lip, and you really do almost come, then almost again when you think about what that would look like against Bucky's mouth. 

"Som'n wrong?" he asks, your dick falling away as his lips move. 

"No, baby, no," you mumble, stroking his hair. "Nothing's wrong, everything's perfect. Lay back, though." 

Bucky obeys without a word, and you push his shirt up all the way up to his collarbone. "Arm up," you say softly, and he does that, too, letting you pull his shirt all the way off, revealing the remains of his left arm. 

"I'm sorry," Bucky says, "for how fucking ugly it is." He grimaces when you look right at it. The scars are thin and white, marking exactly where the doctors sewed him up, and the shape of it is kind of lumpy. 

"So you want me to apologize for my panic attacks, too, Bucky? My whole brain?" 

"What—no! No, no—" 

"Then don't apologize to me for your goddamn body," you say. Bucky snorts, then he laughs, and then he pulls you down to kiss you again. 

Your cocks slide against each other, both slippery with precum, but there's not enough _contact_ , and you reach between your bodies to push them together, to pump them both into your fist. And when precum isn't enough, you lean over to your nightstand, dig frantically in the drawer until you find your half a bottle of lube, and pour out way more than you need into your palm. It's a sticky mess but _god_ is it worth the way he hangs onto your shoulder as his face contorts, mouthing your name with eyes just barely open. 

"Sam," he says, voice laced with warning, "Sam, Sam, I'm gonna—" 

Bucky flushes from his hairline all the way down through his chest when he comes, mouth slack and eyes squeezed with loud gasps while his hips buck into your fist, splattering his own chest. Watching him sends you over, too—easy when you've been close for the past ten minutes—and you spurt across his stomach, too, your back arching as you bite down on your fingers. 

You collapse next to Bucky, boneless, nerveless. His stump presses against your shoulder, and he starts to wiggle away, but you remind him he doesn't have to move if he doesn't feel like it. He relaxes. 

"Holy shit, what a mess," Bucky says, some three minutes later. 

"You talking about me, yourself, or the sex?" 

He pauses. "All three, I guess, but right now mostly like, all the jizz on me. And the lube, which is getting _real_ sticky. Like—" He runs a thumb through the lube just north of his pubic hair, and smears it down the side of your arm. 

"What the fuck, Bucky! Nasty!" you yelp, shoving at him. "Get in the fucking shower!" 

"Oh, you're not coming with me?" Bucky says, waggling his eyebrows as he tries to roll up into a sitting position. He fails twice, too wiped out to get up with just the one arm. "Sam, gimme a push." 

"Yeah, right out the bed," you mutter, but you push against his back anyway, and Bucky manages to get to his feet. He's slow in getting to the bathroom, and slow in pulling his clothes back on. When you come out of the shower he's sitting on the side of the bed with his shoes to the right of his feet, looking exhausted again. 

"You know, you don't have to go home right now," you say, casual as you please as you get into pajamas bottoms. "You can stay the night, so long's you text Steve so he doesn't kick my ass. Or your ass. No asses kicked." 

"Oh thank god," Bucky says, flopping back onto the mattress in an instant. "Because listen, that was fun, but this old man is creaky as hell." 

"So you're saying you wouldn't do it again?" you say as you rub lotion into your elbows. 

"Didn't I say it was fun? Shut the fuck up." 

Bucky forgets to text Steve, but luckily Steve texts first, and Bucky's phone vibrating itself off the nightstand is enough to call attention to the message. He doesn't text for long, especially after his phone drops onto his face. You set your alarms for your morning shift, trying not to think about how little sleep you're about to get. Bucky insists on being big spoon because he doesn't have to consider how to position a second arm, and molds himself to your back, his arm around your waist. 

You wake up late anyway, scrambling to make it to the pastry shop in time while Bucky sleeps on, a fucking log. It doesn't occur to you until much later that you didn't have a single nightmare. 

"You look tired," Steve remarks, way more sly than anyone needs to be today while he rolls cookie dough. 

"You look like you wanna do the whipped cream," you reply. 

"I'm just saying. You look like someone gave you a _hard_ time." With a deadpan face, too. Wonder where he learned _that_. 

"Alright, whipped cream, now." You point at the canisters and the scale. "It's too early for this shit." 

"Just trying to be supportive," Steve says as he drops the cookie dough to move stations. "All I'm saying is you look happy." 

"Just hanging around Natasha too much, is what," you grumble, but it doesn't take long for you to smile. Bucky's still asleep in your bed, and you told him if he still felt too wiped out the next day, he could hang out until you could drive him home. Which means he'll probably still be there when you get back. 

It's not that things are perfect, by any means. But yeah, you could say you're happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had so much fun writing this, and so much less fun writing the last line like four different ways, that i decided to add a little epilogue! and that should be coming soon. 
> 
> again, please, whatever's on your mind, let me hear about it! i love comments, and i love responding to comments, and it only encourages me to write more. a reminder to visit me on [tumblr](http://softurl.tumblr.com/) if you've got any prompts you'd like to shoot my way, or longer conversations you'd like to have!


	3. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> from bucky's pov again. the trio go to the mermaid day parade, and everything is wrapped up nice and neat, more or less

The train slows as it pulls into Stillwell, clanking and shuddering as it reaches the end of the line. The other passengers file off the train in a steady stream, but you still wait until the car is closer to empty before you haul yourself up to leave. Sam puts his hand at the small of your back as you walk, a reminder that he can help whenever you want it. 

"I haven't been out here since I was a kid," Sam says as you make your way down the ramp in the center of the platform. "It was a two hour ride from Harlem on a good day. My parents just never had the time. Or that's what my mom said, anyway." 

"Me and Steve used to take the bus from Bay Ridge all the time." Down by the turnstiles, the station opens up with warm colors, is flooded with sunlight coming through the stained glass windows depicting the Wonder Wheel and like, a hot dog. "My mom called us wharf rats." 

It's not your first day back in New York. Yesterday you met Sam's mother, who chastised her son for taking an entire year to introduce her to you. Sam paid for dinner at a southern food restaurant you've never been to, this far up into Manhattan; everyone seemed to know his mother, and by proxy, everyone had an embarrassing story about Sam's youth. It was a miracle Sam didn't just slide under the table and die. 

There were times, walking together in Harlem, where Sam had to stop, swallowing and glassy-eyed, and you leaned your cane on the wall to let him squeeze your hand too hard. All the places Riley used to be. Sam apologized with every instance and you stopped him every time. 

The biggest exit in the station lets out straight into the relentless sun, and for a second you're both blinded by it; Sam shades your eyes with his other hand, since you can't without hitting yourself in the face with your cane. The street is crammed with people in various levels of skimpy outfits, and running the full spectrum of glitteriness from "none at all" to "reflecting the sun like a mirror". There are wigs, starfish pasties and body paint everywhere, neon tulle floating out behind people like betta fins. 

"I was in the parade, you know, when I was ten," you say as you follow the crowd toward Surf Avenue. 

"Oh yeah?" 

"Yeah, my mom made mermaid costumes for my sisters, and then she dressed me like a sailor and gave me a net to chase them with." 

"Tell me there's 35mm evidence of this somewhere," Sam says, grinning with anticipation. 

"Oh, guaranteed," you agree with a sigh, knowing that when you take Sam to see her tomorrow, she's going to bust out the baby books within ten minutes of your arrival. 

"If I'd known about that, I would have made you be a sailor today." Sam slings his arm around your shoulder just to squeeze them, chuckling. 

"You did enough," you grumble. You don't have a lot of clothes that have much in common with today's event—barely any clothes that are summer-worthy—so you made do wrapping organza ribbons around your cane and putting your hair up in a high ponytail, even though all of it doesn't make it into the hair tie. Then Sam had to up the game by rubbing glitter into your stubble. "Besides, it's not like your outfit has a theme." 

"My theme is beautiful man," Sam says, stroking his goatee. He's wearing are a pair of fish scale printed workout capri leggings and Keds, and the rest of his topless self is coated in iridescent body shimmer that he keeps getting on you every time he touches you. You're pretty sure there's enough glitter on the back of your guayabera to fill a whole makeup pot. 

"I guess you pulled it off," you say, walking along the crowds already lined up around the barrier. "I can't compliment you too much, though, or it'll go to your head." 

"What, this big swollen thing?" he says, pushing his head against the side of yours. "It's too late, Barnes, my head's so big it's about to pop." 

"Aw, Jesus, Sam, come on, it's so sticky out," you groan, but you don't shake him off. When he rights himself he's got your beard glitter on his cheek. 

A pasty, skinny arm shoots up out of the crowd, waving violently at you. Then it vanishes, only to be replaced by the top of Steve's head bouncing up. "Guys!" he shouts with each jump, "guys! Over here!" 

As if you can hurry on over. People are loathe to part, but Steve reaches for you with one glitter-smeared arm, and behind you, Sam bellows, "Wounded veteran coming through, come on people, let 'em through!" in his best train conductor voice. You wanna be embarrassed, but they _do_ move, and Steve pulls you over the rest of the way. 

Where Sam half-assed it and you barely put in a fraction of ass, Steve is almost full-bore Mermaid Day Parade spectator aesthetic. Blue glitter is painted in haphazard stripes up and down his torso and arms, and brushed into his blond hair. The only fabric on his body is a pair of fish scale swim briefs that match the glitter, low and tight over his skinny hips, and his shoulders and neck are draped with pastel tulle, glass pearls, and what looks like knockoff Mardi Gras beads. He's got a folding chair braced against his leg that he sets out as soon as you get to him, right up against the barrier. 

"I was worried you wouldn't find me," Steve says, leaning his waist over the barrier on tip-toe to look down the avenue for the beginning of the parade. "I barely spotted you guys." He glances down at you. "I expected weirder from you, Buck." 

"What was I gonna do, raid your twink-ass wardrobe back in DC and pop all the seams? All I own is sweats and shirts for colleges I never went to," you snort, and finger the collar of your shirt. "I borrowed this from Sam and it only fits because it's from his Air Force days being really fucking beefy." 

"My mom had it hanging around," Sam says with a shrug, putting his hands on your shoulders. "She keeps every goddamn thing like it's all that important." 

"Oh, oh! The cars are coming!" Steve shouts, bouncing on his heels as he leans back. 

Your hips hurt from the cheap chair, but better than the pain you'd feel all the way up your legs and into your back if you'd stayed standing. It still makes it easier to pay attention to the vintage car contest that always starts the parade, and the Brooklyn Brewery float covered in women in mermaid tails that follows it, passing out bottle openers to anyone with their hands out, which includes Steve, who is way more enthusiastic about this than you'd expected. You haven't actually been back to the parade since before Sandy, and Steve's been enjoying his life in DC so much you never thought he was all that homesick. 

Sam kneads your shoulders when you shift in your seat, plants a kiss on the back of your head. It reminds you of this morning, lying on your stomach on Sam's childhood bed while he massaged sunscreen into your back, your neck, your arms, and of Sam tying your hair back for you because you always make it crooked. You insisted you could put sunscreen on him, too, before he got all that shimmer powder on him, although your attempts were more haphazard. 

"Nat and Wanda would have loved this," Steve remarks, an hour into the parade, as a long line of women in retro bathing suits do a dance number that faces away from your side of the street, because the judges are on the other side. 

"Wanda I get," Sam says, "but Natasha? I figured she'd make fun of everyone here." 

"Nah, she'd be right in the parade if she could," Steve says. "Did you know she used to do ballet when she was a kid?" 

"No, no I did _not_ know that." Sam sounds almost affronted that Steve just swept into his store and got to know his surliest employee better than he ever has. 

"Besides, you really can't see Nat loving a day devoted to she-creatures that drown men and possibly eat them?" 

"Point taken." Sam laughs, and you lean back against his stomach, feel the rumble of it on the back of your head. You're also pretty sure it's turning your hair iridescent, but oh well. "Besides, someone had to watch the shop, and those two manage to keep their hands off each other on the clock." 

"That's what you think," Steve says, chuckling. "Of course Wanda wants to act all professional in front of the boss." 

Sam sighs, and you feel that one all down your neck. "I'm learning a lot today." 

Two hours into the parade, your hip is too sore for you to focus, and you tug at Sam's arm until he leans down for you to tell it to his ear. There's more parade to go, and you tell him you're happy to go off by yourself so he and Steve can keep watching, but Sam won't hear any of that. Steve packs up your chair under his arm, not one to leave you behind either, and the three of you squeeze out of the pack, heading for the Aquarium to get around the parade and over to the beach. 

You remember you didn't used to have to look for stair access to the beach; you used to be able to just flip yourself over the railing of the boardwalk, waiting to help Steve over, too. Part of you wants to try, to at least wedge yourself under the top of it and drop into the soft sand on the other side. Surely you could do that much. 

But you're already hurting enough. Sam leads you to stairs, lets you lean on his shoulder as you thump down the steps. Steve takes your shoes while Sam takes off his own; Steve is already wearing flip flops, because he came dressed explicitly for the beach. In fact, once you find a clean and bare spot on the beach and lie down, Steve drops everything he's carrying right next to you, asks if you'll be alright, and with your nod takes off toward the water. You sit up just enough to watch him wade in, yelping like a kid as the waves push and pull at his thighs. 

"I'm not getting in," Sam says as he sits down next to you. "Mama kept a lot, but somehow, she didn't keep any swimsuits." 

"Aren't those Spandex?" you say, nodding at his leggings. "You could swim if you wanted." 

"And soak my drawers, right before the water pulls my pants off? Nah. I'm good here." He lays all the way back, and so do you, twining your fingers with his. 

"I feel like an old man," you say to the air, eyes closed. 

"Then we're two old men, watching our grandson for the day," Sam mutters back. "Just enjoy the sun, you pasty motherfucker." 

"I'm gonna get tan lines on my arm and it's gonna be your fault for putting me in a shirt with sleeves." 

"If I take your shirt off, will you stop complaining?" Sam sits up, glaring down at you. 

"Try it and find out," you reply, smirking. 

"You're not an old man, you're five years old," Sam grumbles, leaning over you to start unbuttoning your shirt from the top. When he opens it up, though, his hands are gentle, skimming down your sides, and up again to ease the fabric of the loose sleeve around your stump. In all honesty, you could have gotten out of the shirt yourself; you haul yourself up into a sitting position to flap the shirt off your arm, although Sam helps you with that, too, sliding his hand down your arm to smooth out the process. It's just more fun this way. 

"Better?" Sam asks, tracing meaningless patterns across your bare chest. 

"I would complain about my pants, too, if there weren't families here," you snicker, which earns you a thump from Sam. 

"Sneaky asshole. For all I know you weren't really hurting at the parade and just wanted me to lay you down in the sand." 

"Right, that's how this works." From anyone else it'd probably be an infuriating thing to say, but with Sam, with his eyes half-lidded, you know he's just flirting. 

You look down the beach, though, watch the kids running and kicking globs of wet sand at each other. Sam follows your gaze, brings your face back to look at him with a crooked finger under your chin. "Hey." 

"I just wanna be like I was," you say before you can even stop yourself. You sound so petulant to yourself. "Just—just for a little while." 

"Don't we all," Sam says, smiling softly. He looks back at the kids, pensive. "You wanna try it?" 

"Try what?" You frown. 

"Running." 

Your heart twists. "I can't do that, Sam." 

"Says who? Who's limiting you?" He takes your hand, squeezes it as he brings it between you and him. 

"Me. I'm limiting me." You gesture at your body, like one motion could indicate your hip, your knee, your ankle, your feet, your shoulder, everything that's wrong and hurting. "All of this is limiting me." 

Sam kisses the knuckles of your hand. "I'm just asking if you wanna try. I don't expect like, a marathon run out of you, or anything. By which I mean _anything_. If you wanna lie back down and go to sleep or something, that's fine, too." 

You hold onto Sam's hand like it's your only anchor, rocking back and forth with your indecision. "It'll hurt a lot." 

Sam doesn't reply. 

"I don't have to go for that long." 

More silence; Sam just rubs his thumb over yours. 

"Help me up, Sam." 

Sam gets up first, then offers you his arm for you to grasp while he pulls you up. He slaps the sand off your back, then turns for you to do the same. You wonder if you need to re-do your ponytail, or do anything else to prepare for this impossible thing. 

Sam calls for Steve, who comes out of the water like a tiny Godzilla, dripping and hunched over. Once he understands what's happening, he's perfectly willing to sit with your collective stuff, though he hopes out loud you won't go too far. Before Sam—before a whole year of Sam—he would have been the one to help you through something like this, and it shows in his face, even if he smiles through it. If it weren't for potential thieves, he ought to be coming along, really. 

Sam walks you down to the edge of the wet sand, letting you lean into him with your cane back with Steve. It would be useless in the sand, anyway. You know you're hyping this up too much, searching for the perfect starting point like a dog circling in a bed. But Sam lets you, wordless while you look for your courage in the surf. 

"Here." 

"Here?" 

"Here." 

Sam lets go of you, and the pain isn't so bad, your heels sinking back in the sand. Before you is a big stretch of beach, empty until it gets to the kids you saw playing. Deep breath. Deeper breath. Exhale, long and too loud. 

You lurch forward. 

It's not like being young again, that's for damn sure. There's no arms and legs pumping in harmony, because you don't even have plural arms; it's more like you're flailing down the water's edge, your feet flopping at a pace you're sure is faster than you want. The ocean laps at your heels, makes you feel unbalanced. Your joints burn. 

But you don't stop. Your eight toes push back against the sand that muffles the screams of your body, and your speed picks up, your arm finding its rhythm with its phantom twin. You remember how to do this. Legs and arm pumping, broken and determined, pushing out sprays of sand under wet toes, your chest warming with the beginning of a sunburn despite Sam's ministrations. 

You can't keep it up for longer than thirty seconds, of course, which still feels like an eternity. Sam was keeping pace just behind you as you ran, and when you start to fall, he appears in the nick of time to catch you, murmuring your name as he drags you a few feet up the beach to let you catch your breath. Everywhere hurts, including your lungs now from how out of shape you've become over the years, but Sam is touching your face, and it makes it okay. 

"You good?" Sam asks, pushing your hair out of your face. Your ponytail is undone; you must have lost your hairtie when you were running. 

"Yeah," you pant, putting your hand over Sam's. "Yeah, I'm good. I think. Am I dead?" 

"Can never be too sure," Sam says, flicking his eyebrows up. "Want me to pinch you?" 

"Something like that," you say, lifting your hand to beckon Sam by the chin. He leans down to kiss you, just chastely enough to not offend the parents of the kids who aren't even looking at you. 

"So are you dead?" Sam whispers when he breaks away. 

"I think I'm alive, but we gotta check again later," you say, smiling so big it's almost another ache to add to the list. 

"Come on, Bucky, we gotta go get our grandson before someone kidnaps him, or something," Sam says, shifting to start getting up. 

"He'll be fine," you say, making no such move. You're still wiped out, kiss or no kiss. You reach with both your arm and your stump toward Sam. "Let me just. Finish coming back to life, and come here, okay?" 

"Fine, alright," Sam laughs, dropping back on his butt. "Just for a little bit, and then if you're still feeling bad, I'm just gonna carry your ass back, alright?" 

"Alright. Just for a little bit." He lies down next to you, kisses your shoulder right before you ask him if he can call down a seagull like he does with Redwing, which earns you a smack in the same shoulder. 

He says he loves you, and you're instantly happy. Happier, anyway. And you tell him you love him, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the second fic i've ended with the mermaid day parade, but it feels different enough that i'm still happy with it. i loved writing this fic, even if it felt pretty long—hopefully you guys liked reading it, too, and i hope this epilogue adds to what was already basically a finished fic!


End file.
